Reyes told to find solutions to fishers’ woes
President Arroyo has ordered Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes to meet with the members of the Southern Philippines Deep Sea Fishing Association to work out ways to get them back in operation and save the canned sardine industry.
Hit by rising fuel prices, the association, which has 15 member firms, together with four other fishing companies, has ceased operating since Monday.
Press Secretary Jesus Dureza said these Zamboanga City-based companies account for 80 percent of the production of canned sardines in the country.
Dureza said the association has a total of 61 vessels, each catching an average of 60 tons of fish per day.
Coupled with the rise in the price of tin, the high cost of bunker fuel has forced the fishing companies to halt their operations.
Dureza said the high operational cost has left a lot of fishing and cannery companies unprofitable.
The President has raised concern about the refusal of the fishing vessels to leave the
Dureza said Reyes would be joined by the Mindanao Economic and Development Council in meeting with the association’s member companies.
He disclosed that the government is considering providing the fishing companies with a P5 per liter subsidy on oil for the short-term just to enable them to resume their operations.
However, the President said she wanted a long-term solution that could involve converting the engines of the fishing vessels to be able to use cheaper compressed natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas.
Dureza said the proposed subsidy for the fishing vessels would most likely be sourced from the proceeds of the value added tax on oil.
This could be part of another round of subsidies and social welfare programs that the administration has been implementing using the windfall revenues from the VAT on oil.
Dureza said the government has yet to determine the exact amount for the proposed subsidy to the fishing companies.
The fish canneries have started laying off workers due to high cost of operations.
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