BFAR informed that the authority has decided to strictly monitor the operation of tuna purse-seine owners from August 1 to September 30, during the spawning season of the fish, when fishing is banned. This temporary ban of tuna fishing has greatly affected General Santos City purse-seine owners operating in tuna-rich international waters off General Santos City.
However this temporary ban does not apply to hand-line tuna fishing and will also not cover fishing using fish-aggregating devices (FAO), locally known as payaw, inside the country’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and municipal waters. The ban is being imposed on commercial tuna fishing using FAOs to prevent overfishing and help the highly migratory tuna species to replenish its stocks in the area.
Malcolm Sarmiento, BFAR director, opined that the government would closely monitor the operations of purse-seine owners in the region to comply with the WCPFC ban. Domingo Teng, owner of OTFI Fishing based here and former president of the Soccsksargen Federation of Fishing and Allied Industries (SFFAI), however, said the local tuna-fishing industry appreciates the temporary ban, but there are gray areas that need to be cleared up.
It is told that commercial fishing is already prohibited within a 15-kilometer radius of municipal waters identified under the Fisheries Code of the Philippines. Teng said that fishing companies belonging to the SFFAI will have their vessels included in the illegal unreported and unregulated list if they are caught violating the ban. Teng said government statistics showed 70 percent of the total landed catch at the General Santos City fish- port complex is produced by big purse-seine owners operating in the high seas and international waters.
