December is Protect- the-Waters Month

The month of December is dedicated to two things: Human Rights and protection of our waters. For this purpose the Department of Energy and Natural Resources issued Administrative Order (DAO) No. 17 that provided the guidelines for delineating and delimiting municipal waters all over the archipelago as provided by Republic Act 8550 of 1998 known as the Fisheries Code of the Philippines. Delineation means determining the outer limits of the municipal waters of a municipality, while delimitation is the determination of boundaries of municipal waters when the delineated boundaries of two adjacent municipalities overlap.

DAO No. 17 was issued on June 11, 2001 by then DENR Sec. Heherson T. Alvarez. It was hailed even by our neighboring countries. Indonesian Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Hon. Rokhmin Dahuri, for instance, hailed it as a "landmark" step that sets a pre-cedent for other archipelagos and therefore deserved re-cognition and applause beyond the boundaries of the Philippines.

What DAO 17 actually did was to protect the rights of small fishermen whose means of livelihood was being threatened by big-time fishermen from the outside who often went as far as using dynamite and chemicals, thus destroying even the reefs and polluting the waters itself.

On March 17, 2003, Sec. Elisea Gozun issued DAO 2003-07, revoking DAO 17. Sen. Nene Pimentel, principal author of the Fisheries Code and father of the Local Government Code came out with a strong statement against Sec. Gozun’s revocation of DAO 17 claiming that it "sets back the efforts to uplift the lives of small fishermen who have been economically marginalized due to over-fishing and degradation of coastal waters."

Pimentel believes that Sec. Gozun gave in to the big fishermen at the expense of the rights of the small fishermen who are entitled to protection under the Fisheries Code and Local Government Code.

We believe that the present administration should study the whole matter. It is what could give true meaning to this month’s commemoration of Protect the Waters Month. Protect it from whom – or, better still – for whom? The small municipal fishermen who depend on these waters for their livelihood or the big-time fishermen from the outside? The small-time fisherman has no other place to fish. The big-time fishers can choose from many other places.

Another big question is which policy will be good for the environment?

Again, the Palace should study the whole matter and all its implications.

Should it sustain DAO 17 or support Sec. Elisea Gozun’s issue of DAO 2003-07 revoking DAO 17? How ironic that such a controversy happened right when we are supposed to be celebrating Human Rights and Protect the Waters Month.