Maguindanao del Norte seaside town’s once abused territorial seas now fully protected

COTABATO CITY — There is a fledgling seaside town now known throughout the Bangsamoro region for having territorial seas absolutely “off limits” to fishermen using dynamites, cyanide and banned types of nets for fishing.

Muslim, Christian and ethnic Teduray residents of Datu Blah Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte, also known by the acronym DBS and established only in 2009, are supporting the anti-illegal fishing campaign of their local government unit via their volunteer beachfront ranger protection teams.

Owing to their vigilance in guarding their seas, community watchmen twice figured in off-shore gunfights, between 2022 and early this year, with seafarers from the Zamboanga peninsula who attempted to bring in imported cigarettes, forcing them to turn around and sail away.

Traditional Teduray and Moro elders on Sunday said that it is their 13 barangay governments that ought to be partly credited for the feats in their municipal government’s security and marine resources protection efforts.

Sports anglers in this city, some of them retirees from private and government offices, have been frequenting DBS for troll and bait fishing since 2020. 

Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, on Sunday said that there is something "peculiar" with how DBS municipal waters are being protected from illegal fishing.

“It is the communities there in the forefront of it and police personnel are just behind them, helping oversee their initiatives. That is a good, tacit example of a clear police-community cooperation in maintaining law and order in the community, worth emulating indeed,” Nobleza said. 

The 13 barangays in DBS originally belonged to Maguindanao del Norte's Upi municipality until 2009. The town center of Upi then was about 60 kilometers upland via Cotabato City from the coastal barangays that are now grouped together under the DBS municipality.

It was for the distance of the now 13 DBS barangays from the operations center of the Upi LGU then that the use of chopped fishes laced with cyanide and scattered in coral reefs as bait, improvised electrical contraptions, home-made dynamites and fine meshed nets by poachers from outside proliferated in the area. 

DBS Mayor Marshall Sinsuat on Sunday said that they are grateful to PRO-BAR, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the units of the Navy’s 1st Marine Brigade for helping them protect their municipal seas from illegal fishing.

“Without their support, we alone can’t clear our municipal seas from fishermen using illegal methods of fishing," Sinsuat said.

DBS is now touted as the “fishing capital” of Maguindanao del Norte, where local residents have an average daily catch of six to seven tons of fishes, including exotic species like grouper, or Lapu-Lapu, albacore, which is Tanguige in most southern vernaculars, and Malasugi, or blue Marlin.