Philippine Fisheries Development Authority (PFDA) has reported an increase in fish unloading in major ports in the country, with most of the fish brought to Navotas Fish Port Complex, the largest fish port in Southeast Asia.
Based on PFDA’s weekly monitoring, there was a 3-percent increase in the volume of unloaded fish in all its Regional Fish Ports (RFPs), which translates to 11,843.42 metric tons (MT) of fish.
The monitoring covered March 8 to 14 and is based on the 2-week comparative weekly report from PFDA’s Operations Services Department (OSD).
The growth was driven by Navotas Fish Port Complex and Lucena Fish Port Complex which registered a 27.22 percent increase to 5,090.66 MT and 34.18 percent to 369.50 MT, respectively.
To date, PFDA RFPs have already unloaded a total of 551,437.06 MT of fish since the start of the community quarantine last March 2020.
In relation to this significant increase in supply, PFDA’s isDA ON THE GO (iOTG) project continues to deliver fresh and frozen and budget-friendly fish supply to its consumers within Metro Manila, and selected areas in Luzon.
As of March 15, the IOTG project has already sold a total of 99,647.20 kilograms of affordable fish and fishery products and has served more than 350,000 families.
In an unrelated development, the national fishers’ group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA) recently expressed opposition against the House Bill seeking to declare Laguna de Bay as primary source of potable water.
For PAMALAKAYA, the country’s largest brackish water lake should remain as fishing grounds that provide livelihood for at least 14 million fisherfolk and coastal residents across the lake.
Filed by Representative Rufino Biazon, House Bill 737 seeks to tap the 90-thousand-hectare Laguna de Bay as a primary source of water.
It then tasked the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA) to “formulate and implement a program to ensure that the quality of water in the lake shall pass the standards of water sources intended for such use”.