BY RUBY P. SILUBRICO
ILOILO City – The Iloilo Provincial Bantay Dagat Task Force and Regional Maritime Unit 6 (RMU-6) are joining forces to curb illegal fishing, specifically the prohibited Danish seine or hulbot-hulbot.
Of particular concern to them is northern Iloilo, said Superintendent John Mitchell Jamili, RMU-6 director.
Northern Iloilo faces the 10,000-square-kilometer Visayan Sea, one of the country’s major fishing grounds. Its bounties are also shared by fishermen from the islands of Masbate, Cebu and Negros.
“We will conduct operations against hulbot-hulbot together with Bantay Dagat,” said Jamili.
Hulbot-hulbot consists of a conical net with two long wings that form a bag where the fish are collected.
The ends of the net are connected to a rope embedded with buri, plastic strips or other sinkers.
The net is thrown into the sea then dragged by a mechanical winch or by manpower.
The practice is considered environmentally destructive because dragging the net underwater to catch fish ruins coral reefs, the spawning grounds of marine life.
The Supreme Court (SC) recently uphelding the ban on hulbot-hulbot .
Gov. Arthur Defensor Sr. who proposed the ban said the high court’s decision strengthens the campaign against destructive fishing.
Jamili and Provincial Administrator Raul Banias already had a conference on how to make the campaign against hulbot-hulbot more effective.
The Bantay Dagat discovered last year a new method of illegal fishing apparently to circumvent the ban on hulbot-hulbot.
The illegal fishers used modified set gill nets, scare ropes and tom weights similar to that used by hulbot fishers.
The Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 bans the use of hulbot-hulbot within municipal waters or 15 kilometers from the shoreline.
In 2012, hulbot operators in northern Iloilo signed manifestos that they would stop their operation in support of Gov. Defensor Sr.’s campaign against illegal fishing.
The use of tom weight is illegal under Fisheries Administrative Order No. 222./PN
