Ben Caasi is no longer into dynamite fishing as he leads the Bantay Dagat (sea patrol) in Anda, Pangasinan.
(This article appeared in the 17 June 2005 issue of Business World.)
PANGASINAN, PHILIPPINES – Bienvenido Caasi, 62, considers himself lucky. After years of engaging in dynamite fishing, he still has all his fingers intact. Other fishermen are not as lucky – many are missing several fingers or even a whole arm from this destructive form of fishing.
Mr. Caasi is no longer into dynamite fishing these days but he still lives just as dangerously. In his new role as member of the “Bantay Dagat” (sea patrol volunteer), he makes sure that only legal means of fishing are practised in his village in Macaleeng, Anda. He is on guard against commercial fishing boats from other towns engaged in illegal forms of fishing in his territory. The death threats he gets do not faze him.
“I was just following the others,” he said. “People from other towns would come here and fish illegally. We knew we were breaking the law but it was easy for us to get out of it. But I realized there was no future in this. Dynamite fishing was destroying the corals and the small fish were dying. So this is my way of paying back what I destroyed.”
Mr. Caasi heads the Macaleeng Samahang Multi-Sectoral ng Barangay, which is responsible for guarding the 48.5 hectare Panacalan Island Fish Sanctuary in his town. Ben and his men guard the sanctuary in support of the government through local laws formulated with the Fisheries Resource Management Project (FRMP). A municipal ordinance enabled them to supervise and maintain the sanctuary’s protection since April 2003. No fishing is allowed inside this sanctuary and Mr. Caasi and his group make sure of that.
There are two people’s organizations patrolling the sanctuary on a voluntary basis, and Mr. Caasi belongs to one of them. Volunteers also serve as tourist guides to visitors. The project provided them the boat, binoculars, and communications equipment for their patrol duties. On the side, they have a seaweeds livelihood project, supported by a grateful town mayor.
Nowadays, Mr. Caasi is still both a fisherman and a guardian of the sea. His efforts have enabled him to increase his fish catch by at least half a kilo for every two-to-three hours of fishing. And this time around, his conscience is clear that he is not causing any damage to the environment.
The Philippines has one of the world’s richest biogeographic areas with a wide diversity of marine life. It is a natural fishing ground with 150 million hectares of marine waters surrounding its 7,107 islands. Its coastline of 17,640 kilometers is five times its land area. Fisheries, therefore, is a main source of livelihood for over a million Filipinos, most of whom live below the poverty line.
The FRMP therefore has an important task to do, which is to reverse the trend of declining fisheries resources in municipal waters – the area within 15 kilometers of the shore – caused by overfishing and destructive fishing using dynamite, cyanide and fine mesh nets. The project is being implemented in 18 out of the 26 priority bays around the country, in 100 municipal communities and cities in 11 out of 15 coastal regions and 23 provinces. Anda, enriched by Lingayen Gulf, belongs to one of two provinces being covered by the FRMP in the Ilocos Region.
It is a six-year project being implemented by the Department of Agriculture through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and funded by ADB and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. The project began in 1998 and builds on the Government’s Fisheries Sector Program approved in the early 1990s, which was also made possible through ADB assistance.
This year, as the project draws to a close, it can boast of successfully fulfilling its main mission of reversing the declining production of municipal fisheries. Production has increased by an annual average of 2.64% since 1999, in its first year of implementation. Enhanced habitats have resulted in the improvement in the volume of fish catch and its sizes; certain species that have stayed away after years of destructive fishing have even returned.
The project encourages small-scale fisherfolk to seek alternative forms of livelihood such as in cottage industries or mariculture to augment their income from fishing. The top livelihood alternatives are seaweed culture, milkfish deboning, fish drying, and grouper culture. As of May 2005, a total of 217 livelihood projects have been provided to about 6,619 beneficiaries. Nongovernment organizations help fisherfolk form self-help groups, mobilize savings, develop small businesses and rehabilitate and manage fisheries resources.
One such partnership between a livelihood center and a town is in San Fabian, Pangasinan. Mayor Mojamito Libunao says he strongly supports the bangus deboning and smoking project of FRMP by marketing the end-product. “It is something that we feel we should support first because the capital investment is not so much,” he says. “A large part of the investment is in educating and instructing the beneficiaries. And these are beneficiaries who really need the additional income.”
The project also strengthened the capacity of government agencies in managing their fisheries resources at the local level. Seventy-two coastal communities have drafted their municipal coastal resource management (CRM) plans while 876 barangays have prepared their own plans. The CRM implementation of the project becomes the responsibility of the communities and local government units (LGUs). As a sign of the project’s high credibility and success among local folk, even non-FRMP areas have adapted ordinances of nearby towns.
Jessica Munoz, the FRMP Project Director, stressed the strong role that local governments play in the project. “Before we start the project, we sign agreements with LGUs where they commit to the project and provide counterpart funding. So they have a stake here too,” she says. “It’s not a doleout. If you have a stake here, your participation is more committed because you will nurture your investment. We expect the LGUs to continue with the activities even after the project funding has ended since this becomes part of their regular planning and activities.”
The project has established a Fisherfolk Registration Database, now deployed to 80 municipalities; a Fisheries Information Management System, which supports regulatory, licensing and law enforcement; and decision-making functions in fisheries. It captures the number of fisherfolk, gear, vessel used, and landed catch
The project’s information-education-communication (IEC) campaign promotes awareness and community participation in educating fisherfolk about the problem of fish depletion and getting them involved in resource rehabilitation activities. Even schoolchildren are made aware of their activities. Barangay Learning and Resource Centers have been established in major coastal regions. Many local government units have been trained by FRMP staff and are now producing their own information materials, to suit their own information dissemination needs, mostly in their own dialect. The BFAR-FRMP website, which gives out important fisheries information, is an equally popular information tool, averaging 20,000 to 35,000 hits per month. Some municipalities are using FRMP’s databases for their operations.
Ms. Munoz says there was a strong need for a grassroots-level IEC component. “Fisheries management is basically a change in attitude in people. Before, fishermen are used to taking resources for themselves,” she adds. “But here, there is control and management of the resources from where they get their living. It is difficult to tell them not to get too much out of these resources so we had to conduct a massive information campaign among the fishermen and schoolchildren.” She says that through this they will recognize the importance of managing their coastal resources and an awareness of environmental concerns.”
“FRMP has been of great assistance to us ever since it started in terms of education and training,” says Mayor Gabriel Navarro of Bani town who fiercely protects his town’s mangrove rehabilitated area, even at the risk of his own reelection last year. “More people are now aware of environmental concerns especially in the protection of our marine resources.”
The project also has a community-based carrot-and-stick approach to law enforcement, specifically in sea patrol. Mr. Caasi is only one of a total of 1,174 persons who have been trained on fisheries law enforcement under FRMP. Not all apprehensions, however, end up in courts since sea patrols try to resolve disputes at the barangay level and rarely reach the courts.
“There is a very significant improvement in terms of apprehension of people who are continuously violating the law,” notes Regional Director Nestor Dumenden of BFAR Region 1.
The need to protect Pangasinan’s vast marine resources has never been as important as today when it is now actively promoting its once-famous Hundred Islands back in the tourism map, as an eco-tourism destination. “The objective is to maintain its natural beauty and protect the environment within that area,” says Alaminos City Mayor Hernani Braganza.
Mr. Caasi’s 39-year old son Harvey is also a fisherman. He only finished vocational school training and applied for employment in many offices to no avail. So he went back to the sea for a living. His only child, a 16-year old son, has completed high school and would like to pursue a college degree as a computer technician. But with meager financial resources, he will likely end up fishing for a living, like his father and his father before him. The older Caasi’s are making sure he still has some fish to catch, just in case he won’t be able to acquire a college degree.
The author (left) with FRMP's Tina Basco in Northern Mindanao.
