GMA urged to investigate poaching in Sulu, Tawi-Tawi
By John Unson
The Philippine Star 01/05/2007

COTABATO CITY — Traders in the South want Malacañang to investigate the "wanton poaching" by hundreds of vessels from Metro Manila and abroad on the fishing grounds of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, in total disregard of sensitive provisions of the local fisheries code. The unabated encroachment of fishing boats in the waters of the two provinces, without proper coordination with local authorities, has reportedly been depriving the government of no less than P1 billion worth of yearly revenues.

Prominent members of the business community in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) have also questioned last Saturday’s "mysterious rescue" by the Philippine Navy of some 50 fishermen aboard two fishing boats held for inspection by Tawi-Tawi port personnel. Worse, according to the sources, it was made to appear that the port personnel that carried out the inspection were bandits and tried to extort P500,000 from the owners of the two fishing boats owned by a firm allegedly managed by someone related to a retired Navy general.

Navy rescues 50 fishing boat crew in Tawi-Tawi

"Fishing boats from as far as Navotas, Malabon and China, have been poaching in our fishing grounds for about 30 years now. The port personnel in Tawi-Tawi were merely doing their work of regulating the coming in of boats into the province," said a Tausog-Chinese trader engaged in large-scale carageenan seaweed business.

It was only last November 2006 when a task force, composed of personnel from ARMM’s Regional Ports Management Authority (RPMA) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, began a crackdown against uncoordinated operations of big fishing fleets in the seas of Tawi-Tawi and Sulu. Under existing rules, owners of fishing companies are to pay the RPMA only P2.50 per ton of fish caught from the fishing grounds of the two island provinces, or roughly P50 for the estimated 20-ton weekly catch of each of the fishing boats operating in the two adjoining areas. Since January 2006, collections of the RPMA are covered by receipts and are remitted to the Regional Treasury, which, in turn, supplies media outfits in Central Mindanao with a matrix of monthly remittances from the agency.

"The practice of these poachers, even before the ARMM was established in 1990, is to come to Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, scoop tons and tons of high-quality fishes from our seas and then, without saying thank you, leave and sell their catch to other parts of the country," Hadji Munil, a Tausog operator of a smaller, outrigger-type motorized boat, said in Filipino.

Local officials in Sulu have confirmed of past incidents where displaced fishermen fired automatic weapons at the encroaching fishing vessels.

Sources from the BFAR-ARMM said the big fishing boats use powerful lights that attract fishes from shallow waters to the spots where hundreds of lighted vessels converge to simultaneously operate their nets. The use of powerful lights violates the ARMM’s Fisheries Code, enacted by the Regional Assembly and signed into law last February by Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan.

The ARMM, under its charter, R.A. 9054, has the power to legislate laws aimed at protecting its environment and ensuring the wise utilization of natural resources in its constituent-provinces.

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200701059906.htm

Hmmm... what puzzles me is that why did their said Tawi-tawi port personnel fled when they saw the arriving PN vessels. They should have stood their ground and identified themselves to PN boarding parties.

something fishy indeed!

money matters again. huh, Coast Guard?