Pasil fish dealers ink pact to guard seas

CEBU, Philippines - Fish dealers in the Pasil Fish Market along with the Cebu City Government signed an agreement with the Visayan Sea Squadron to formalize their commitment in guarding Cebu City’s coastal waters against destructive fishing and other illegal activities that are destroying the marine ecosystem.

The Memorandum of Commitment (MOC) was signed by Mayor Michael Rama as head of the local government unit concerned, Market Administrator Racquel Arce as representative of the Market Authority, Ret. Col. Cesar Enriquez of the Cebu City Bantay Dagat Commission, Environment Lawyer Antonio “Tony” Oposa of the Visayan Sea Squadron (VSS) and the legitimate Pasil Fish Dealers.

In the MOC, fish dealers committed to police their own ranks and refrain from accepting, buying and selling fish that is a product of blast fishing and other destructive fishing methods.

“Fish dealers will exert every effort to ‘green their supply’ by ensuring that their suppliers practice only legal and sustainable fishing methods. For this purpose, they shall conduct seminars among themselves and among their suppliers on what are sustainable fishing practices,” the MOC reads.

The seminars to be conducted shall be in cooperation with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources as well as other concerned government agencies or even non-government organizations.

Dealers also committed to exert efforts to put up marine protected areas to create nursery and breeding grounds for fish and other marine lives to sustain the fish supply from which they depend on for livelihood.

On the part of the City Government, through the office of the Market Administrator and the Bantay Dagat Commission, there shall be regular inspection and arrests as they are mandated by the law to do so.

The City also agreed to prosecute violators and reserve the right to cancel their business permits “immediately upon filing of the case and without waiting for final conviction.”

The VSS, for its part, will cooperate with the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct periodic enforcement operations.

“VSS will file the necessary charges for possession of illegal marine products including the filing of cases for violation of the Anti-Fencing Law against persons who will be found to have accepted, received, bought and sold fish taken illegally from the national and natural patrimony,” the MOC reads.

The VSS, with the help of its Legal Team and the Philippine Earth Justice Center, is also ready to charge before the Office of the Ombudsman and the civil courts public officers who have been negligent in their duties to monitor, apprehend and prosecute violators of the law on marine resources. (FREEMAN)