Domestic fish harvest via ports up 1.6% in January

A fish attendant checking fresh round scad or galunggong harvest at Navotas Fish Port Complex, the largest fish port in the country. —INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Regional fish ports posted a 1.6-percent increase in fish harvests in January, led by the Navotas fish complex, despite off-season fishing in key areas.

In a report, the Philippine Fisheries Development Authority (PFDA) said the volume of fish unloaded at regional ports increased to 39,399.10 metric tons (MT) last month from 38,780.63 MT in the same period last year.

On a month to month basis, however, fish unloading volume dipped by 7.2 percent from 42,445.26 MT recorded in December.

Among the country’s regional ports, fish volume delivered by the Navotas Fish Port Complex totaled 19,120.85 MT, surging by 80.3 percent. The country’s largest biggest fish port held a share of 48.5 percent.

The General Santos Fish Port Complex came next with 15,161.366 MT of fish volume despite encountering a minor setback in its fish shipment. This was 33.3 percent lower than the same period last year.

Fish ports in Lucena (Quezon) and Iloilo brought 1,592.37 MT and 1,591.91 MT of fish, respectively, dipping by about a percent.

Accounting for the remainder are the fish ports in Bulan, Sorsogon (1,126.55 MT), Davao (459.47 MT), Zamboanga (346.47 MT) and Camaligan, Camarines Sur (0.125 MT).

Temporary ban

The annual closed fishing season recently ended. Fishing activities are temporarily barred in the Visayan Sea and Zamboanga Peninsula from Nov. 15 to Jan. 15 each year and Nov. 1 to Jan. 31 in northern Palawan.

The government introduced the annual ban to protect target fish species— such as sardines, mackerel and round scad spawn—during their peak spawning period and address other concerns such as overfishing and climate change.

Fisheries production dropped by 5 percent to 4.05 million MT in 2024 from 4.26 million MT because of the reductions in marine municipal fisheries, inland municipal fisheries, and aquaculture, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

Aquaculture accounted for over half of the fish output amounting to 2.22 million MT, down by 6.8 percent.

Marine municipal fisheries production dropped by 8.8 percent to 802,769.29 MT while output of inland municipal fisheries fell by 4.8 percent to 166,170.28 MT.

Only commercial fisheries output climbed by 4.2 percent to 857,329.70 MT in the previous year.