MANILA, Philippines - Lawmakers are pushing for the approval of a bill creating the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, which would focus on the conservation, development and use of the country’s marine resources.
Rep. Angelo Palmones of the party-list group Agham, one of the bill’s authors, said the proposed department would replace the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and other fisheries agencies currently under the Department of Agriculture.
All relevant functions, appropriations, records, properties, equipment and personnel of these agencies would be transferred to the envisioned new department, he said.
He said the House committee on fisheries and aquatic resources has endorsed the measure.
“The country must have a strong regulatory body to adequately guard, conserve and sustainably manage our aquatic resources,” he added.
Palmones expressed confidence that the 15th Congress “will witness the passing of this bill into law and see the transformation, directly and indirectly, of the affected seven million families.”
“There is a lot of opportunity for more employment and income not only for the fishermen but also for farmers. The government should not be limited to just abolishing non-performing agencies as it streamlines the bureaucracy, but must also be prudent enough to create agencies that are timely and needed in the exigency of public service,” he said.
He stressed that the creation of a fisheries department is timely in the wake of the country’s renewed assertion of its economic rights within its 200-mile exclusive economic zone.
He pointed out that the Philippines is an archipelago of 7,107 islands with 22,549 miles of coastlines, making it the nation with the fifth longest coastline in the world.
The proposed fisheries department would have primary jurisdiction over the management, conservation, development, protection, utilization and disposition of all aquaculture, fisheries and aquatic resources of the country, including the habitats of fish and all other marine life and other activities which impact on these habitats, except for municipal waters.
Municipal waters would remain under the jurisdiction of local government units in accordance with the national fisheries policies, laws, rules and regulations.
The bill mandates the proposed department to supervise and regulate the production and capture of fish and fisheries products, as well as the processing and marketing of all aquaculture, fisheries and other aquatic products in the country.
To accomplish the proposed agency’s mandate, the bill creates six bureaus for fishery economics and statistics, for aquaculture and inland fisheries, fishing technology and capture fisheries, fisheries extension, training and support services, marine resources conservation, management and enforcement, and for postharvest and fisheries product standards.
It also creates 16 regional field offices and six national fisheries technology centers.
The proposed department would be headed by a secretary who would be assisted by three undersecretaries - for policy and planning, operations and for administrative support services and external relations - and six assistant secretaries.
It would have a budget of P10 billion, plus P500 million for the construction of its own national office building.