Supreme Court ruling guts weak IUU fishing monitoring, expert warns

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

ILOILO CITY — The monitoring of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing was already weak, and the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the junking of the government’s vessel monitoring regulation will effectively gut what remains of the system.

The high court, voting 13-2, upheld the 2021 ruling of Malabon City Regional Trial Court Branch 170 that declared Fisheries Administrative Order (FAO) No. 266 null and void for unconstitutionality. The decision was penned by Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh, who wrote that the government had not shown sufficient evidence that the vessel monitoring system was effective against IUU fishing violations. It was promulgated earlier this year and released to the media on July 30.

FAO 266, issued by the Department of Agriculture in 2020, set the rules for vessel monitoring measures and electronic reporting systems, requiring Philippine-flagged commercial fishing vessels to install tracking equipment and submit electronic catch reports.The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources said on Aug. 3 that it would file a motion for reconsideration, describing the order as more than a tracking device and calling it a frontline enforcement tool.

During a press conference on the decision, Joshua Regalado, an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, said commercial fishing in municipal waters ranks among the top violations.

Regalado cited the 2022 and 2024 assessments published under the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) IUU Fishing Index and Threat Assessment (I-FIT) tool, which indicated that 99 municipalities reported commercial fishing in municipal waters as a top IUU fishing threat, the highest among 10 violations.

According to the same data he presented, Western Visayas provinces report a high estimated volume of fish caught through commercial fishing in municipal waters, with between 40,000 and 60,000 metric tons caught in Aklan, Antique, Guimaras, and Iloilo.

These assessments were conducted before the August 2024 Supreme Court resolution, which upheld the unconstitutionality of the Fisheries Code provisions that limited commercial fishing vessels (CFV) from accessing municipal waters, legally defined as the waters within 15 kilometers of a municipality’s shoreline.

That resolution, issued by the court’s First Division on Aug. 19, 2024, denied the petition of BFAR and the Department of Agriculture against a December 2023 Malabon Regional Trial Court decision, after the court noted that no appeal had been filed within the reglementary period and the judgment had become final and executory.

Regalado also presented an analysis of apprehension reports in Fisheries Management Areas (FMA) 5 and 6, which he described as the two largest such areas in the country.

CFV intrusions were the second-highest violation recorded, at 38% in FMA 5 and 22% in FMA 6.

Unauthorized fishing was the top violation, at 50% in FMA 5 and 29% in FMA 6.

FMA 5 encompasses Palawan, the Calamianes group, the Mindoro Strait, Cuyo Pass, and parts of the West Philippine Sea and the Sulu Sea.

FMA 6 comprises parts of the West Philippine Sea covering Regions 1, 3, and 4A, and the National Capital Region.

“If we trace where [CFVs] operate and their home ports, we notice that their fishing grounds and their bases are very dynamic. [CFVs] move around within [FMAs], provinces, LGUs, and between other areas,” Regalado said during the press conference on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

Regalado emphasized that sound enforcement of fishing regulations is essential to implementing fisheries management policies, including monitoring, control, and surveillance (MCS).

“Without the proper enforcement of regulations, laws, policies, and management measures, we couldn’t implement them, [and in turn] we could not evaluate, and then we couldn’t reach our fisheries goals and targets. […] We will not be able to refine our fisheries management measures,” he said.

Two essential components of MCS are the vessel monitoring system (VMS) and the electronic reporting system (ERS), which he said help gauge commercial fishing vessels’ compliance with fishing laws and regulations.

“The VMS helps in monitoring vessel activity, where the vessels go [and] where they fish. It’s very vital for monitoring, and together with the other tools, it gives an idea of what vessels are doing,” Regalado explained.

“The ERS complements the required catch reports and catch logs submitted by fisherfolk and commercial fishers. We can harmonize how much is caught and where they get it from,” he added.

He pointed out that proper enforcement of the VMS and ERS could help address current gaps in fisheries management.

These include the movement and activity of CFVs, limited catch data and logs, documentation of community reports, distinguishing the activities of domestic and foreign vessels, integrating licensing data with monitoring, surveillance, and enforcement operations, traceability of catch, and the limited capacity of patrol operations.

He added that VMS and ERS could also support maritime domain awareness, which could benefit the national security sector.

Regalado enumerated the effects of weak enforcement of fishing laws and regulations, which include:

• emboldening IUU fishers to persist in IUU operations;
• further decline of catch and endangerment of fishery and marine resources;
• unfairness to compliant fishers;
• difficulty for fishery scientists and managers in assessing the health and status of fish stocks;
• difficulty in determining whether fishery regulations are appropriate and effective; and
• further weakening of enforcement.

Fisherfolk leaders, including PANGISDA Pilipinas president Pablo Rosales and Ramon Magsaysay awardee Roberto Ballon, warned that the twin decisions of the Supreme Court — the 2024 resolution and the recently released ruling striking down BFAR’s vessel monitoring measures and ERS — will further threaten their already vulnerable situation.

“We are already seeing our dwindling catch [and] the narrowing of our fishing areas. These are the concrete experiences, and we also see how fast fish are running out and who we are mingling with in the seas,” Rosales said.

“What is sad is that our government, particularly our justice system, does not want our seas to remain abundant. They don’t want us to rise from our ranks, which are among [the] poorest in the country,” he added.

For Ballon, the biased decision of the Supreme Court was skewed against smaller fishers, who also wished to know who they are sharing the seas with.

He pointed out that even with the BFAR regulations in place, controlling IUU fishing practices by CFVs and their operators had already been difficult.

“It’s like the [SC] decisions always favor business owners. In short, [they] are governing our judiciary. That’s what we feel. It’s like we’re not Filipinos. Are the business owners only Filipinos who want to have better lives and contribute to the economy [with] food and livelihood for fellow Filipinos? Are we not included in that?” Ballon said.

“It had already been difficult to control the entry of [CFVs] in municipal waters [without the SC decisions] when they could still be monitored; how much more now that we will no longer be visible? […] [CFVs] will stand by islands with fish sanctuaries and we will not know what time they will be there,” he explained further.