The last five families who held their ground in Sitio Kinse, Barangay Taliptip in Bulakan, Bulacan have left their homes to give way to the construction of a billion-peso world-class airport.

They left their houses on October 31 with hopes that they can keep on fishing as it is the only livelihood they knew that gave them enough financial and material resources through the years.

One of the residents, Thelma Bantigue, has lived in Sitio Kinse for 34 years, while her parents lived there for more than 50 years.

After she was born in Batangas, where her parents took a job as fishpond caretakers, her family went to Sitio Kinse and never left.

"We are not too troubled here with our livelihood. They are saying it is 'nice to live in the barrio because everything is there.' If you only knew, we only have rice to eat and a little money to give our children for school allowance but it is enough," she said.

Her husband, Roberto, is a fisherman, and she mainly helps him by making fishing nets for him.

Nets can be expensive, so she decided to learn how to make her own.

One net can cost P80 and sometimes other fishermen ask her to make nets for them too, which gives her an additional source of income.

They were told they can still fish in the area for now but once the airport construction starts.

"It's very easy to plan, but how can we go about it if we don't have the money? If I want to build a small store or sell cooked food, I have to have the money. Even if I don't have much work here, even if I don't have a job, we have something to eat because our livelihood is just here," Bantigue said.

Rodel Alvarez also recalled going out with his father to fish which is how the children of Sitio Kinse learn to live from the bounty of the sea.

"Noong bata ako, nangingisda kami ng tatay ko. Minsan namamanti kami ng tilapia, pang-ulam," he says, adding that that way of life will not be as accessible for the next generation of Kinse's families since they will be moving further inland.

"When I was a kid, my father and I used to go fishing. Sometimes we fish tilapia for food," he said.

Alvarez fishes but more often earns a living by catching crabs, saying he can earn as much as P3,000 a night for a good haul.

He said he may go into a buy-and-sell business if he can no longer catch crabs since the area he is moving to is near a polluted river.

For fisherman Teodoro Bacon, he could easily earn P500 to P1000 after just a few hours of fishing.

Once they relocate, he said they will have to spend an additional P200 on gas and must travel further into the open sea.

He will also have to spend more on transportation since they would have to dock their catch on a different port. Living as a fisherman will never be the same for him.

"There is nothing we can do, we already fought hard. Maybe we can only go this far. But even if we lost, at least we can still hold our heads up high. We have fought for our rights," Bacon said.