BFAR wants bank account for poachers’ fines

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is in talks with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to create a special account for the fines it gets from illegal fishermen and poachers.

During the Philippine Agriculture Journalists forum on coastal resource management, Assistant Director for Technical Services Drusila Esther Bayate said they already asked the DBM for permission to open an account for the fines.

“We are positive that this will be approved. Hopefully, we’ll open the account before the year ends,” said Bayate.

For 2016 to 2017, BFAR, an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture, remitted P12.8 million from administrative fines, excluding the ordinance fines of local governments.

After the new Fisheries Code was implemented in 2015, fines were increased from as low as P5,000 to as high as $1 million, while jail time was also increased from six months to three years.