Oceana mulls suit over vessel monitoring mechanism

MANILA, Philippines — The local unit of an international ocean conservation group is planning to sue the government for its failure to issue a policy on vessel monitoring mechanism that caused the continuous increase in cases of illegal commercial fishing within municipal waters.

Oceana Philippines said it would file a continuing mandamus before the Supreme Court against the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) if the agency will not issue and implement the rules on vessel monitoring.

Continuing mandamus is a writ issued by a court in an environmental case directing any agency to perform an act decreed by final judgment which shall remain effective until judgment is fully satisfied.

“They committed to draft the rules but until now, we have none. This is not discretionary on the part of the fisheries bureau because there is a mandate for them to craft the IRR (implementing rules and regulations),” Oceana Philippines vice president Gloria Ramos told reporters.

Under the rules for environmental cases and even under the amended Fisheries Code, any citizen can sue the government if there will be improper or no implementation at all of certain laws and rules.

“We have done our share, a TWG (technical working group) has been created, there is a draft already, we had public consultations and then last minute, they will tell us that it will be indefinite (implementation),” Ramos said.

“For us, if they do not want to listen to the civil society, then the courts would have to be one to tell them to tell their job. We are still waiting for their reply, we are giving them more than enough time. They should promulgate the rules to cover all commercial fishing vessels,” she said.

The rules for the vessel monitoring should have been implemented since October 2016 as the mechanism would allow the government to track the behavior of commercial fishers and if they are encroaching the municipal waters.

The IRR of the Fisheries Code requires that vessel monitoring technology be installed in all commercial fishing vessels of 3.1 gross tons and above.

Oceana said BFAR has argued that it will be expensive to implement the mechanism, but the group’s pilot testing a few years ago showed that it would only cost P800 a month per vessel.

The group also sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol on the matter, but has yet to receive any response.

“If they do not have the political will, they can just give all the reasons. Our plan (to file) is nothing personal, it is against the agency and we have been telling them since that we need these rules to deter illegal fishing,” Ramos said.

“It has been two years already and so they cannot say that we pressing them. But I hope this time, this pressures them,” she said.