PROVIDING LIVELIHOODS for a large share of the population, the Philippines’ waters remain of vital importance. The fisheries sector alone accounts for 1.6 million Filipino jobs and 1.3% of the Philippines’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Despite the sector’s vast contribution to the economy, its workers still experience one of the highest poverty rates in the country. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the sector was estimated to have a poverty rate of 30.6% in 2021.

Fishing groups continue to express their dismay towards the government’s lack of action, with some even evaluating the current administration’s response to their needs as a failure. As the needs of the country’s fishing sector go unaddressed, many of the problems that it already faces could lead to increasingly severe consequences.

Unsustainable practices

The industry currently faces a multitude of issues brought about by poor enforcement of fishing guidelines in Philippine waters. As a country rich with marine resources, the Philippines regularly faces cases of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

IUU methods such as overfishing pose a grave threat to the country’s marine biodiversity as it reduces the volume and quality of our marine livestock. Such a problem may in turn adversely affect food security in the country since seafood makes up about 40% of the total animal-sourced protein consumed by Filipinos. Effects may also be felt economically as the country annually loses Php 62 billion to IUU fishing.

In spite of the harmful effects of IUU fishing, fishers still opt for these methods as a way to yield more profit. According to Nygiel Armada, Chief of Staff of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Fish Right Program, the most common perpetrators are small-scale fisherfolk, who are actually aware of the proscriptions on IUU fishing.

According to a 2021 study by Misamis University, fisherfolk in the coastal areas of Misamis Occidental typically engage in illegal fishing methods as they struggle to provide for themselves and their families. While fishing was enough to provide their daily needs, it did not account for any extra expense that they would need to incur, such as sudden hospitalization or their children’s education. Thus, despite the risks, IUU fishing yields more catches and has become a norm within some communities.

For fisherfolk to unlearn these traditions, Armada advocated that they be shown how sustainable fishing is actually just as profitable. He further expressed that fisherfolk must be taught about the environmental risks of IUU to their community as well as the waters in which they fish.

“The approach that [USAID Fish Right is] trying to work now is to focus on behavior change, focus on compliance, and show fishers that complying can be just as good as doing illegal [fishing] in terms of profit,” he said.

Gaps in response

As these issues persist, fisherfolk remain ill-equipped to handle them. According to Armada, the most basic challenge the country faces is the lack of equipment that can monitor our waters and apprehend violators. To address this, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) seeks to fully implement the Monitoring Control and Surveillance System, which will track all fishing activities in the country.

Through the program, every fishing vessel in the country would ideally have a navigational device installed. The information gathered by this device would then be relayed to the BFAR’s main office to help the government better identify and capture perpetrators of IUU fishing.

However, many fishing vessels have yet to comply with the program. Armada explained that while it has been easier getting commercial vessels to comply since they risk having their licenses stripped away, there has been very little compliance from small-scale vessels and none yet from municipal vessels.

Such implementation gaps are further exacerbated by the occurrences of foreign vessels poaching in the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Illegal poaching by Chinese vessels remains a major point of contention in the Philippines’ current dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea (WPS) and has directly hampered the livelihoods of many fisherfolk in the country.

In a 2022 interview with Inquirer, Asis Perez, a former BFAR director, said that the Philippines could lose around 7.2 million kilograms of fish product for every month that China drives Filipino fishers out of WPS. This situation has had adverse effects on the income made by fisherfolk, which ranges from Php 300 to 1,000 for every fishing trip they make.

Many of these problems are not new, yet they persist. Although responses to the sector’s needs have been made, fisherfolk are left vulnerable by the gaps of inclusivity in policy-making and implementation.

Future projections

As the government navigates the tumultuous task of solving the fishing sector’s immediate problems, more pressing challenges could trouble the industry in the near future. For instance, the ever-growing threat of the climate crisis looms over the sector. Alongside causing job insecurity, climate change could gravely damage the Philippine economy. Its impact on fisheries is expected to cause a 9% decline in the GDP if mitigation measures are put in place; in the worst-case scenario, the country could see a decline as steep as 18% up to 2060. 

While Armada expressed that forecasting specific effects was difficult, fisheries would no doubt feel concrete and grievous impacts. “I can imagine that there will be more fishes going towards the north [where the waters are] cooler, as the Philippine oceans become warmer and we lose our biodiversity,” he said. 

The loss of biodiversity could become another factor leading to a further decline in the present fish volume, thus lessening fishing catches. Such a problem could only prove to worsen the living conditions of already impoverished fisherfolk.

To protect the livelihoods of fisherfolk in the country, Armada stated that protecting and increasing the reproductive capacities of fish need to be a primary focus of government bodies such as the Department of Agriculture, who have the help of scientists. He also said that further instituting policies such as seasonal closure is imperative for fish stocks to remain balanced as ocean temperatures continue to rise.

Ultimately, the intersectionality of these issues cannot be ignored. Armada himself emphasized how overfishing and IUU further enhance the damage that climate change can cause, and the same is true for foreign vessels that poach in Philippine waters. While the government seeks to mend the sector’s wounds, it is important they make sure that new ones do not take their place.