Fisheries in the country with the fifth longest coastline in the world are in a freefall, with 45 million kilos of fish lost annually, a new study reveals.
International marine protection organization Oceana warned of a national food security crisis in the Philippines as the country suffers a catastrophic 13-year decline in the nation’s fisheries.
Data from the report titled The Philippine Fisheries Assessment, A Glimpse of RA 10654’s 10-Year Implementation said the Southeast Asian country registered losses reaching 591,136 metric tons of fish since 2010 due to weak law enforcement and failed governance.
“Our fisheries are being emptied, and with them, the livelihoods and food sources of millions of Filipinos,” Oceana Vice President Von Hernandez said earlier this week in a presentation at the University of the Philippines in Manila.
“We call on President (Ferdinand) Marcos Jr. to reverse this alarming trend by investigating and holding to account the government officials and vested interests responsible for this gross neglect,” Hernandez added.
The study concluded that government’s weak implementation of its Fisheries Code leads to increasing scarcity of the country’s primary source of protein.
Oceana said the figures are already translating to generational poverty in coastal communities where as many as 70% of its citizens live.
An archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, the Philippines has a coastline of 36,289 kilometers where over 830 municipalities and 25 cities are located. In said communities, seafood is main protein source.
United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization ranks the Philippines as belonging to the top 10 to 12 fish-producing countries in the world.
Oceana’s study however reveals that more than 353,000 fisherfolk families fell below the poverty line in 2023, with more than 93,000 of them classified as food-poor or unable to afford even the most basic food requirements.
“This is a national food security emergency,” Hernandez said.
Other critical points from the report include:
- Stock Collapse: 88 % of fish stocks are overfished and depleted according to the government’s own National Stock Assessment Program report in 2017
- Production Plunge: Catch has plummeted from 2.6 million metric tons (2010) to 1.9 million metric tons (2023)
Commercial Encroachment: Oceana’s Karagatan Patrol satellites detected 270,165 night lights over approximately 25 hectares of water from 2017-2024—reliable indicators for apparent commercial vessel presence in municipal waters and protected areas. - Human Cost: 2.5 million fisherfolk and their families are suffering, with almost 15% (353,190) living below the poverty line and 93,030 families deemed “food-poor.”
- Dying Industry: The average Filipino fisher is now 49-52 years old, with the next generation abandoning the trade due to paltry monthly incomes of P2,500 to P7,000
The group also bewailed recent court rulings allowing commercial fishing fleets into municipal waters that are within 15 kilometres of shorelines and are described as the final refuge of recovering stocks and small fishers.
“Our fishers are the ones putting food on our table, yet they are the ones going hungry and struggling from poverty,” Oceana said.
“This is incompetence meeting greed, and it’s shrinking our fisheries and emptying people’s nets,” the group stated. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
