This photo taken on July 5, 2022 shows workers filling containers with a fishing boat’s catch at a port in Masinloc town, Zambales province. (Photo by Ted ALJIBE / AFP)
MANILA, Philippines – Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) on Friday urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to stop importing fish and instead support agriculture and the fisheries industry.
Marcos sits as secretary of the Department of Agriculture in a concurrent position.
Ronnel Arambulo, Pamalakaya’s spokesperson, suggested that Marcos strengthen local production to make the country’s food self-sufficient.
“We expect that the new agriculture secretary will totally abandon the burdening import-liberalization schemes. Instead, he should pivot agricultural policies towards strengthening local production through sufficient government assistance to our fishers and farmers, especially in critical times,” Arambulo said in a statement.
Together with other measures to ensure food abundance, Marcos must fix natural disaster-related problems and restore displaced residents’ livelihoods.
A major impediment to the growth of the local fishing industry mentioned by Pamalakaya is the large-scale Chinese fishing activity in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) which, by intimidating Filipino fishermen, has led to them abandoning their traditional fishing grounds.
Among Pamalakaya’s demands are the following:
- Economic assistance in times of natural calamities especially typhoons and other ecological disturbances such as fish kill and red tide;
- Sufficient production subsidy amid soaring prices of oil products and other prime commodities;
- Ensuring that Filipino fishers can make use of marine resources within the territorial and traditional fishing grounds; and,
- Prohibition of all types of conversion and reclamation of coastal communities and fishing grounds that displace fishers and destroy marine and aquatic resources.
These policies can boost the productivity of local fishermen, and at the same time help the country to become food self-reliant, according to Pamalakaya.
“These are all doable measures to ensure that we will not fall short on fisheries production and that our country can be food self-reliant. All it takes is the new administration’s political will to strengthen our agriculture and fisheries industries by putting an end to liberalization policies that open our floodgates to imported and cheap products to the detriment of our local food producers,” Arambulo said.
Pamalakaya earlier called out Marcos to address China’s blockade of traditional fishing grounds in WPS which is part of the Philippine exclusive economic zone, saying that they can no longer bear another six years of “defeatist collaboration.” – Nicole Faye Agcaoili, INQUIRER.net intern
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