January 3, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — A new law is needed to overrule a decision of the Supreme Court (SC) allowing commercial fishing vessels to fish in municipal waters, according to former agriculture secretary Leonardo Montemayor.
Montemayor, chairman of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF), yesterday joined small fisherfolk organizations in opposing the ruling of the high tribunal, which struck down a provision of the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 reserving municipal waters for small fishers.
“The law limits fishing within 15 kilometers from the shoreline of municipal waters to small fishermen,” Montemayor said.
He said the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Department of Agriculture (DA) failed to appeal the SC decision within the required period.
He said a measure may have to be filed and passed in Congress to correct what he described as a “grave injustice and economic injury” against small fisherfolk.
As a former lawmaker, Montemayor said he co-authored the Fisheries Code or Republic Act 8550, which was amended by RA 10654 in 2015.
Montemayor was DA chief from 2001 to 2002.
Meanwhile, Magsasaka party-list chairman Argel Joseph Cabatbat said the SC decision, once fully implemented, may result in the degradation of the country’s fishery resources.
Cabatbat cited the use of destructive methods like trawl fishing by commercial fishing vessels.
The SC ruling stemmed from a petition filed by Mercidar Fishing Corp., which sought to open municipal waters to commercial fishing vessels.
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