SINKING LOCAL ECONOMY. Amid fish scare which saw an up to 80 percent price drop of fish and other marine products, fishermen in Balatan, Camarines Sur unload the day’s catch from their fishing vessel.                                                      JONAS CABILES SOLTES


BALATAN, Camarines Sur --- With three bodies found and many others reportedly sighted floating along the waters of this fifth class municipality and Pasacao town, the tragedy that struck Sulpicio Line’s MV Princess of the Stars continues to hound with difficulty not only the families of the disaster’s victims but also the residents of towns along Ragay Gulf in the western coast of this province who rely heavily on fishing as their source of income.

        Merle Gorgonia, municipal agriculture officer of this town, said 80 percent of the families living in the six coastal villages here who were into fishing had no other choice but to find alternative sources of living after the local fishing industry had been severely affected by the fish scare, following the Department of Health’s advisory to temporarily refrain from consuming fish and other marine products caught in the vicinity of the capsized ship, where hundreds of dead bodies and tons of toxic pesticide are reportedly trapped.

        Fishing vessel operator Gavino Napoles in Barangay Siramag here lamented what he termed as misfortune on this town’s fishing industry, which they said had been on decline even before the recent fish scare. But Napoles was hoping that the scare would only last for two weeks at most. Meanwhile, they had to make do with whatever they could net despite the public’s wariness on consuming marine products from this town, to survive the last few days before the onset of the monsoon winds that makes the sea too rough for fishing.

        Mayor Nena Borja said the fish scare had ushered in advance the lean season for the local fishing industry, which usually coincides with the monsoon season. She added that the scare had given the town a real glimpse of the looming shortfall in its supply of fish and other marine products.

        In Pasacao town, Mayor Asuncion Villamante-Arceño accepted that the municipal government was finding it hard to immediately provide alternative livelihood to fishers, hinting that the move would require an amount that the town’s coffers cannot readily finance.

        Borja and Arceño are both first-termer town executives who along with other municipal mayors of towns lying in the western seaboard of this province were having their first tastes of dealing with this kind of economic situation.

        Borja said she was expecting assistance from the provincial government in case the worst-case scenario, the unmitigated crippling of the fishing industry here, would occur. Yet, she said the town was lucky enough that the scare took place at the time of the year when fishing activities were waning from a peak season. That was why she was optimistic that the scare would not totally paralyze the main source of livelihood of town residents.

        Before, a kilo of most commercial fishes here would sell at an average price of P80. Now, with the fish scare, a kilo of tulingan (mackerel tuna) sells from P40 to P20—an up to 80 percent price drop. But no one would buy, residents attested. That was why most of the catch including anchovies and herrings ended up dried or smoked.

        Considered second to the poorest among other municipalities in this province, the town was almost not prepared for unforeseen events such as what is happening now. Borja said that during her first year in office, she focused in reorganizing the problematic setup of this town’s bureaucracy, and did not see the incidence of fish scare, which could seriously pull down fishing activities here, coming.

        Arceño, meanwhile, said she did not expect the fish scare to have much debilitating impact on the fishing industry in her town, a fourth class municipality. She said the effect of the scare to her town’s fishing industry would only be temporary and could last only for months, with a year as maximum.

        Pasacao town, unlike this municipality, has developed a way to provide alternative sources of living for residents whenever the monsoon season comes. This town, Borja accepted, was still too dependent on fishing, especially the coastal villages.

        The town mayor said she could not blame some of her constituents, accepting that there were very few industries here other than turning to the sea to accommodate the less fortunate townsfolk during off-peak season for fishing. And some of them have no other option but to go out of town and settle for jobs that offer meager income in other places such as Naga City.

        With the problem facing the town now, Borja said she along with other town officials was being challenged to do something greater and to rise above their town’s depressing station, bewailing that the real problems that need urgent solutions may not be the current fish scare or the declining fishing industry here but the high rate of unemployment resulting from low educational attainments of many of the residents of this idyllic coastal town.