ZAMBOANGA CITY -- It was payday for workers of various fishing and canning companies here, but the mood was not that of people excited to come home with take-out food for the family or of men aching to start a binge in a local bar.

The scene was of men and women with sad faces, the grief coming from the awareness that while they would have money for their needs, perhaps for a few days, the paychecks that they were falling in line for would be their last.

Several companies have either downsized their operations or shut down as a result of rising fuel costs, removing hundreds of jobs.

Irene Nobleza, 35, who works at the Permex Canning Corp., was among those who received her last paycheck -- P1,080 -- for a week’s worth of work.

Nobleza was among dozens of workers of Permex who lost their jobs when management decided to retrench to scale down operations.

“How will I feed my children now?” she asked.

The tears that welled in her eyes spoke of greater fears -- of her children dropping out of school, of her family going hungry, of further sinking into the abyss of poverty.

It was hard enough for her to support a family with a meager wage, but “now I am losing my job,” she said.

Belen Dichoso, 38, who had work at Mega Fishing as chief porter for 18 years, was devastated.

A mother of five, Dichoso also lined up for her last paycheck.

Since she was 20 years old, she knew no other job except that which paid her P200 a day at Mega Fishing -- carrying fish from Mega’s port to the processing area.

Her worries were as basic as Nobleza’s -- how to feed the children, how to give them education, how to survive.

Without a job, those worries were much bigger now for Dichoso. The lone breadwinner in the family, she asks: “Where will I get money now?”

“My husband is unemployed and just tends to farms nearby,” she said.

She said she understood her company’s decision to retrench workers but the one thing that she also understood and feared more was that finding another job was nearly impossible.

“It’s not just the workers who are affected, but all the canning companies in Zamboanga City. Where will I get another job?” Dichoso said.

Lepeng Wee, owner and president of Atlantic Food Corp., said he was forced to retrench about 2,000 workers.

Wee said it was a great sacrifice for the workers.

“I really pity those who lost their jobs, we are also on a losing end,” he said.

Atlantic Food Corp. helps package sardines for the 555 brand of Century Canning Corp. and Columbus Seafoods Corp. but since fishing vessels have not gone out to sea because of high fuel costs, there was nothing to pack anymore.

“My workers don’t have anything to work on anymore,” said Wee.

He kept a skeleton force of 30 workers to maintain machines and pieces of equipment.

Canning and fishing companies in Mindanao started falling like dominoes when fuel costs more than doubled from P22 to P55 per liter. After Permex, came Mega, then Universal Canning Corp., Maxwell Food Corp., Espa Foods and the list is growing longer.

William Tiu Lim, Mega Fishing president and chief executive officer, said he grounded all his 52 fishing vessels and the machines in his cannery came to a halt.

“We cannot break even anymore,” he said. “We cannot sacrifice more and end up with nothing.”

Eugene Yap, vice president of the Southern Philippines Deep Sea Association, whose members include Mega Fishing, said the only key to their survival now is government intervention.

“The city produces 80 percent of canned sardines in the country and is known as the sardines capital of the Philippines. The industry will die if nothing is done about it,” Yap said.

Lim said the crisis besetting Mindanao’s fishing industry now is forcing 43,000 to 50,000 land and sea-based workers out of their jobs.