DA to cancel part of fisheries sector loan

The Department of Agriculture is going to ask for the cancellation of another $2 million from the original $89 million, six-year fisheries sector program (FSP) II loan program with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) when it meets next month with the program financiers.

Earlier, the DA sought the cancellation of $3 million of the original FSP loan value, reducing it to $86 million.

The DA, through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), is considering another cut by $2 million when it meets with ADB and the Philippine government middle of September, according to Director Marciano Carreon III of the Fisheries Resources Management Program (FRMP), the administrator of the program.

The cancellation is being sought in view of the savings realized in some portions in the implementation of the FSP program components due to devaluation, which is why the DA sees it fit to return or cancel the amounts no longer needed by the program’s implementation, Carreon told participants to the launching of Fish Talk, a monthly forum sponsored by the Philippine Agricultural Journalists (PAJ), at the Bureau of Soils and Water Management lecture room.

Of the $89 million original amount, 40 percent comes from ADB, 30 percent from JBIC and the 30 percent from the Philippine government. The original loan, which was extended by these multilateral funding agencies in 1997, is due for review by September.

Managed by FRMP under BFAR, the project was about to reduce some costs due to devaluation, which is why we have to return the portions that we do not need and cannot use anymore, Carreon said.

Another panelist in the forum, BFAR Region 4 Director Rosa Macas reported some headway being made by the bureau in warning the fisherfolk from capture fishing to aquaculture and other inland fishing methods, such as water tank-fishing and rice-fish culture.

Macas, citing figures from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), said fisheries production growth indicated a shift from marine production to inland fishery.

Fisherfolk, who have been empowered by the Fisheries Code to manage their coastal resources for sustainability, upon realizing the dire state of their own marine fishing grounds, opted to minimize extraction from the seas and lakes and chose to work more vigorously towards fish culture in ponds and other means, Macas said.

Through the fisheries and aquaculture resources management councils (FARMCs) fisherfolk of Region 4 are now aggressively developing other livelihood (outside of fishing in open waters) by means of vegetable farming, raising fisheries breeding stocks for dispersal, fishponds, fish tanks in Los Baños, seacages in lake and other open bodies of water, fish sanctuary, and in Aurora, Quezon – the inland aquaculture project where tilapia is grown in 10,000 hectares of irrigated rice farms, Macas said.