Justice for small fisherfolk
Small-scale fisherfolk, lodged among the poorest in society, are pleading with lawmakers to tackle a bill seeking to restore their exclusive rights to fishing grounds nearer the shore, or where they and their smaller boats can safely operate. They called on the House of Representatives to take up House Bill No. 5606, or the proposed “Atin ang Kinse Kilometro” Bill, when it resumes session on Nov. 10.
The Makabayan bloc filed HB 5606 last Oct. 20 to restore the exclusive rights of small fisherfolk over municipal waters, or what is known as the 15-kilometer fishing zone from the shore. The Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas, which helped the Makabayan legislators craft the bill, said the measure is in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding a lower court order to completely open municipal waters to commercial fishing vessels.
It all began on Oct. 5, 2023, when Mercidar Fishing Corp., a commercial fishing company, filed a petition at the Malabon Regional Trial Court (RTC) seeking to declare as unconstitutional certain provisions of the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 and its implementing rules that limited the users of municipal waters to small fisherfolk and gave local government units (LGUs) jurisdiction over their fishing zone.
‘Preferential rights’
On Dec. 11, 2023, the Malabon RTC sided with Mercidar, emphasizing that control over natural resources belongs to the national government, not the LGUs. It also held that the Fisheries Code’s provision for “preferential rights” of small fisherfolk did not expressly exclude commercial fishing in municipal waters. The Malabon RTC’s decision went unchallenged because the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), which represents the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Department of Agriculture, failed to file a timely response.
On Jan. 2, 2024, the OSG brought the case to the Supreme Court, but on Aug. 19 of the same year, the high tribunal’s first division dismissed the petition because it was filed too late. It said the deadline to appeal had passed and the RTC ruling had already become “final and executory.” While motions for reconsideration are now pending at the Supreme Court, the Malabon RTC decision stands, causing fear among small fishermen.
Given the country’s vast marine resources, it makes one wonder why commercial fishing companies, with their more advanced equipment and vessels that can operate way beyond the 15-kilometer municipal waters, insist on encroaching on the traditional fishing grounds of the marginalized fisherfolk.
Frequent typhoons
HB 5606, if enacted, will ban commercial fishing vessels from operating within municipal waters. Violators face penalties, including a fine equivalent to the value of the catch or P10,000, whichever is higher, for the first offense; a fine and the confiscation of the catch and fishing gear for the second infraction, and imprisonment for six months and the automatic revocation of the fishing license for a third offense. HB 5606 asserts that the State has a constitutional duty to protect subsistence fishers and guarantee their preferential rights to marine and fishing resources. House lawmakers need to act with urgency on the Makabayan bill to right a wrong on small fisherfolk.
Senators also need to take action on Senate Bill No. 1007, filed last Aug. 6, on the establishment of fisherfolk resettlement areas. Nearly three decades since the enactment of Republic Act No. 8550 or the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998, the proposed bill noted that the establishment of such settlement areas remains delayed. Reliant on coastal resources for their subsistence and livelihood, the frequent typhoons and natural disasters that hit the Philippines every year expose them to risks that endanger their lives and income sources.
Bleak future
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations estimated that as of 2020, there were nearly 2 million active fishers operating an estimated 476,000 fishing vessels, around 60 percent of which did not have engines and used sails or oars. It added that more than 80 percent of fishers in the Philippines can be characterized as small-scale fishers.
Alice Ferrer, executive director of Too Big To Ignore Philippines, the local unit of the Bangkok-based nongovernmental organization championing the rights of marginalized fishers, has lamented that small-scale fisherfolk now face a bleak future under the Malabon RTC ruling permitting commercial fishing in the municipal waters.
In truth, the two bills in the House and in the Senate will not be enough to lift out of poverty the families dependent on municipal waters. However, passing them will ease their burden and anxiety. As Ferrer pointed out: “Justice demands that [small fisherfolk] receive more under the law. Laws and policies must recognize their disadvantaged position and must support to uplift them. This is about fairness.”
