DEMOLITION crews from the environment department and Cavite
province yesterday started tearing down illegal fish pens and cages dotting the
Cavite side of the 1,800-square-kilometer Manila Bay.
Environment Secretary Jose Atienza Jr. and Cavite Gov. Ireneo
Maliksi stood by with some 150 fishermen as a 20-ton backhoe ferried aboard two
tugboats started clearing the fish cages. The demolition is expected to run from
seven to 10 days.
Personnel from the Army, Navy, DENR, and local government
also took part in uprooting the structures numbering to about 200.
At least 60 divers had to loosen the bamboo poles fastened to
each other at a depth of at least 10 feet before the structures could be pulled
out by the backhoe and stockpiled at a designated area near the roadside
project.
Atienza said the demolition is "not only sound environmental
management but sound economics" because it stimulates growth among Cavite’s
fisherfolk.
Earlier, Atienza said illegal fish pens are one of two major
factors why government has failed to conduct a massive rehabilitation of Manila
Bay. The other reason is failure of water concessionaires to build sewerage
treatment facilities as required in their contracts.
The clearing operation came two months after the Cavite
government and DENR surveyed the affected areas and discovered that the
structures are operating without permits from local government units.
The Cavite Provincial Office certified last May 26 that none
of the coastal towns in the province had issued a permit for the construction
and operation of any aquatic structures in the bay area, except for Ternate
which had issued three permits for one fish pen, one fish cage and a baklad.
Maliksi said 70 percent of the structures are owned by
residents of Pampanga, Bulacan and other nearby provinces.
A fish pen, which is usually built in deep waters, can cover
an area anywhere from five to 50 hectares with its poles firmly fixed on the sea
floor with its net submerged underwater.
A fish cage, however, takes up a smaller area of up to one
hectare to structures as small as 10 by 20 meters. The structure is either built
like the fish pen type or the floating type with its net visibly seen on the
surface of the water.
Fishes are bred and cultured in fish pens and fish cages. The
fishes grown in these structures include lapu-lapu and talakitok which are also
exported.
On the other hand, fishes are trapped in "baklads" which
number close to a hundred in Manila Bay.
Engineer Rolly Pozas, head of the Cavite-Environment and
Natural Resources Office, said baklads are just as problematic as the fish pens
and fish cages in the bay area because they pose danger to whatever fish is left
in the area leaving little for the individual fisherfolk to harvest.
He said the three structures have prolonged the travel time
of ferries plying the Manila-Cavite route as the vessels have to navigate
through the maze of the structures.
"What is supposed to be a 30-minute ride stretches to over an hour because of
these structures," Pozas said.
