I HEARD about imported hard-tail mackerel or round scad (galunggong) being sold in the local markets that are probably smuggled, and are probably from China. That is probably triple jeopardy if we can call it that.
The sad thing about that is that galunggong is supposed to be a local fish, and our local fishermen are supposed to be earning a livelihood from that, except that that is now being stolen from them.
I can imagine how our rice farmers are feeling about the fact that after many years of working us to grow the rice that is their means of livelihood and is our means of survival, that too is being stolen from them as we are importing more rice supplies from abroad, some of them probably smuggled too.
The other irony is, we are buying rice from the people who only learned how to grow rice from us.
Now comes another big blow that will not only hurt our economy, it will also hurt our egos and our national pride. We know that the jeepney was originally an American product that we localized because of our ingenuity, but why are allowing some people to change it into a Chinese product?
I really felt sad when I saw the supposedly Filipino jeepneys that are made in China, being sold here. How can that be? Why are we allowing foreign companies to profit from a product that we could actually produce locally, probably even in a better way?
I call on the government to look into this. Who can do it?
The Department of Trade and Industry? Or the Department of Transportation?
MINIMUM SIZE OF FISH CATCH ALLOWED
What are the laws that are in place to regulate the size of fish that could be legally caught? Are there such laws and what are they?
It seems to me, however, that catching fish in this country is a free for all, such that anybody can catch any size of fish anywhere, and everybody can just get away with it.
Just recently, I bought a dozen baby milkfish from a supermarket that is too small to be caught or harvested. A friend told me that milkfish that are grown in fishponds can be harvested by the owner at any time at any size, but should there not be regulations regarding that?
As I understand it, we have a shortage of milkfish fingerlings so much so that we already have to import these. If that is so, then why are we wasting these fingerlings by not growing them to full size?
I understand that fishpond owners can harvest any size they want, but how do we monitor and control the fish that comes from the wild?
It would be easy for anyone to claim that his fish was harvested from a fishpond, and not from the wild. That is similar to the problem of anyone claiming that his lumber is harvested from a tree plantation, and not from a forest.
The bottom line in this issue is two-fold. We are protecting our food security, and our wildlife assets. If we allow anyone to harvest any fish at any size or age, we might run out of some fish species before we know it.
I am calling the attention of the Department of Agriculture, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Biodiversity Management Bureau to attend to this matter./PN
