‘Ban Manila Bay big-time fishing’

Quezon Rep. Wigberto Tanada backed yesterday calls from local government units to ban large-scale commercial fishing in Manila Bay which has been depriving subsistence fishing communities of their catch.

"The whole Manila Bay should be closed, for an extended period, to all commercial fishing as studies done in 1995 by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) have established it to be in a critical state," the congressman told a press briefing arranged for the media by the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM). "The same study recommended immediate government action for its rehabilitation," he added.

Earlier, Interior and Local Government Secretary Alfredo Lim issued a directive declaring that municipal waters, which extend 15 kilometers from the coast, belong to local fishing communities.

This followed a campaign launched by the local government units in Sasmoan, Pampanga; Ternate, Maragondon, Naic, Cavite City and Tanza in Cavite; and Mariveles and Orion in Bataan to close the bay to commercial fishing and keep it exclusively for the use of small fishing communities.

The PRRM and its partner group, the Kalipunan ng Maliliit na Mangingisda sa Manila Bay (KALMADA), said the new Philippine Fisheries Code (RA 8850) itself provides "cloak protection for small fisherfolk whose sole livelihood depends on our waters."

The group is lobbying government to impose a seven-year moratorium on commercial fishing in the Bay.

There is also a strong move to clean up the Manila Bay. Last year, a team of senior law students from the University of the Philippines, led by Prof. Antonio Oposa, filed a suit in a court in Cavite to enjoin various government agencies concerned to carry out their mandates to protect the bay from pollution, which has reached alarming levels. The case is still in the pretrial stage.

Tanada, who is one of the principal authors of the Philippine Fisheries Code, said closing the bay to commercial fishing is not enough.

"It should be accompanied by a massive cleanup effort to rehabilitate the bay’s waters," he said, noting that the BFAR has already committed to set up a Manila Bay Management and Development Council.