CLARK FREEPORT ? Fishing vessels reportedly owned by Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese companies have been encroaching on portions of the Philippine Sea in Aurora to fish for tuna, a senator said here.

?They come during the January-July tuna season. They?re the ones gaining from our resources,? said Sen. Edgardo Angara at the launch of the Aurora extension office here on Friday.

The haul could not be ascertained but Angara said eight fishing vessels, some with canneries, are seen almost daily during those months.

He said he and his sister, Gov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, have asked the Coast Guard to establish a station in northern Aurora and assign patrol boats there to protect the province?s waters from poachers.

These, he said, should be equipped with radio sets to alert the Philippine Air Force and stop illegal tuna fishing there.

To help local fishermen benefit from the tuna resource, Angara said he has also asked representatives of the Port of Valencia in Spain, one of the biggest port developers in the world, to come in February 2009 to explore a plan to help develop a port for the 500-hectare Aurora Special Economic Zone in Casiguran town.

Investors in Basque, also in Spain, have been invited to start sea-farming ventures in the 300-ha Aurora Mariculture Park started in Casiguran three years ago.

Victoriano San Pedro, provincial fishery officer, said fishermen had reported seeing long-line fishing gears used in the hauling of tuna, blue marlin and other high-value species.

Foreign fishing vessels at times have entered the municipal waters, which are 15 km from the shoreline, San Pedro said when reached by phone in Baler on Wednesday.

The encroachments had gone on for several years, becoming more frequent in the last three years, it was learned.

San Pedro said the provincial fishery office and the police had failed to pursue the violators.

He said the patrol boat lent by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to the Aurora government had been lent to the Coast Guard in 2007 to help in cleanup operations for oil spills in the Visayas.