Fish scare spreads to other provinces
Southern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 18:53:00 07/03/2008
NAGA CITY, Philippines -- As the number of dead bodies drifting to Ragay Gulf neared 200 on Wednesday, fish scare is gripping the local market here.
Fish sales have dipped and local retailers canceled their orders for fish from dealers.
“No one would buy fish, except freshwater fish or fish raised in fishponds. Since the news of dead bodies filled the airwaves, we could hardly sell our products,” Catherine Diaz, 27, of Corazon Diaz Store, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.
The store sells big fish species like blue marlin, tuna, grouper and high-end sea products like prawns, squid and blue crabs.
“Before the news of dead bodies floating in Ragay Gulf broke, the fish sales were okay. Of the 100 customers who buy here during the normal times, you could only have one today who would dare to buy our products,” Diaz said, explaining the immediate impact of dead bodies in the seas to their business even as the Department of Health officially announced that there was no immediate danger to the people’s health.
She said they were forced to cut down prices by as much as P40 to P60.
The reduction, however, did not make a dent in changing people’s perception that fish would be safe to eat, Diaz said.
But the fish scare that hit marine products neither increased the sales of freshwater and fishpond-raised fishes like milkfish and tilapia either, according to vendors of these fish products.
Rosita Borja, 43, fish vendor of freshwater fish, said the number of customers buying their products was more or less the same and that their daily income from sales did not improve even as the prices ran from P60-P80.
Buyers of meat also did not increase because of the inflationary effects brought by high fuel costs, said Abraham Perez, 57, who works at the Euradix P. Gasses Meat Shop.
In Balatan, Camarines Sur, Merle Gorgonia, municipal agriculture officer, said 80 percent of the families living in the six coastal villages here who are into fishing had no other choice but to find alternative sources of living due to the fish scare.
Fishing vessel operator Gavino Napoles in the village of Siramag here said the fishing industry had been on the decline even before the fish scare. Napoles was hoping that the scare would only last for two weeks at most.
Mayor Nena Borja said the fish scare ushered in the lean season for fishing in advance. The lean season, she said, usually coincided with the monsoon season.
In Pasacao town, Mayor Asuncion Villamante-Arceño said the municipal government was finding it hard to immediately provide alternative livelihood to fishers, hinting that the municipal coffers did not have enough funds for such projects.
Borja and Arceño are both first-term executives, along with other municipal mayors of towns lying in the western seaboard of this province.
Yet, Arceño said the town was lucky that the scare took place at the time of the year when fishing activities were waning from a peak season.
She expressed optimism that the scare was temporary and things would eventually get back to normal.
Before, a kilo of most commercial fishes here would sell for an average price of P80. Now, with the fish scare, a kilo of tulingan (mackerel tuna) sells from P40 to P20 — representing an 80 percent price drop.
But no one would buy, residents attested. That was why most of the catch, including anchovies and herrings, ended up dried or smoked.
The fish scare has also reached the shores of Quezon province as commercial fishing operators and small fishermen stopped catching fish due to lack of buyers.
“Our fishing boats remained anchored for the past five days. With the high cost of fuel and lack of fish buyers, venturing out into the sea is a double whammy. A sure recipe on how to lose money,” said Noli Yu, one of the commercial fishing operators based in the coastal village of Dalahican here.
He said at least 15 commercial fishing vessels lay idle along the long coastline of Tayabas Bay.
With an estimated 60 workers each boat, hundreds of families and thousands of people would continue to go hungry if the government would not correct its earlier declaration to ban the eating of sea products, Yu predicted.
In Barangay Dalahican, a group of small fishermen was spotted drinking gin to kill boredom after several days of staying inland.
“What’s the use of going out there in the sea to fish when there are no buyers of our catch? With the high cost of gasoline, it’s much better to just stay at home and drink,” said Pedro Calubad.
Calubad lamented that even their family members were afraid to eat fish due to the government ban.
The Department of Health banned the eating of fish taken from the waters off Sibuyan Island, Romblon, where the MV Princess of the Stars sank, bringing down with it 800 passengers and crew, and a dangerous cargo of highly toxic pesticide, endosulfan.
The ban covers only the waters off Sibuyan, but the fear of fish extended everywhere, not only because of the pesticide but because of the public’s unfounded apprehensions of fish products being contaminated with viruses or bacteria from the remains of the Princess victims.
Persistent news reports and wild rumors of body parts found in the belly of big fishes have been fueling fish scare.
Reports from Juan Escandor Jr., Jonas Cabiles Soltes and Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon
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