Villagers collect sardines swept by waves to Sarangani shores

COTABATO CITY — A large volume of tiny sardines got swept by waves from the sea into beaches in Maasim town in Sarangani at dawn Sunday, a peculiar but normal phenomenon and for superstitious villagers, a sign of good tidings this year. 

Barangay officials in Tinoto in Maasim town helped oversee the collection of what fishery experts called juvenile pelagic sardines for all to have enough shares, particularly their marginalized constituents.

The so-called beaching of fishes at shorelines is caused by sudden changes in sea temperature and wave directions and lack of planktons to feed on.

“This is a blessing from God. We are thankful to God for this,” a villager, Allan Gomez Dionaldo, 28, told reporters in Filipino.

He and his neighbors had collected at least five pails of tiny sardines each at the beach in Barangay Tinoto.

Hundreds of villagers brought home at least 20 to 30 kilos each of tiny sardines, called “lopoy” in local dialects, that they conveniently scooped from the shallow shores of Barangay Tinoto using their bare hands, pails and basins.

Cirilo Aquadera Lagnason Jr., a staff of the Protected Area Management Office of the Sarangani Bay Protected Seascape under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-12, said that the beaching of juvenile pelagic sardines is not a conclusive indication of underwater seismic activity as often construed by the public.

Old folks traditionally warn of a calamity or disaster to happen after there are peculiar but scientifically explainable beaching of fish species in the beachfronts.