Cavite 4th district Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. (Mark Balmores/ MANILA BULLETIN)

Government officials ought to set an example to the public to prove that it's already safe to eat fish that was caught in the Mimaropa region, which was affected by MT Princess Empress oil spill.

Cavite 4th district Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, made this assertion Tuesday, May 9 during a joint hearing with the Committee on Ecology to discuss environmental issues linked to the oil spill.

During the hearing, the solons were surprised to learn that the provincial government--after fish sample testing by Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR)--had lifted the fishing the ban in several municipalities in Oriental Mindoro on Monday, May 8.

Last Feb. 28, MT Princess Empress--carrying 800,000 liters of industrial oil--sank off the coast of Naujan, Oriental Mindoro, causing a widespread oil spill into the Tablas Strait.

The House members wondered out loud if it was really safe to consume the fish in the area.

Barzaga then issued a challenge to the attending officials of BFAR and another agencies to eat the fish caught in these waters.

“Kasi yun ang nangyayari pag may question sa tahong. Yung aming governor, kakain ng tahong, ipakikita, safe na ang tahong sa lalawigan ng Cavite. Sa Cebu naman, pag ASF (African Swine Fever), makikita mo si Governor [Gwendolyn] Garcia, kinakain yung baboy (Because that's what happens when there is a concern on mussels. Our governor will eat mussels to show that it is safe to eat mussels from the province of Cavite. In Cebu, if there were threats of ASF, you would see Governor Garcia eating pork)," he said.

"You should set the example...para makita nila na walang pagpapalit ng sample ng isda so that they will see that the fish samples weren't switched out). That’s the way to convince the people," he stressed.

Shortly after saying this, Mike Malaluan, a councilor from Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro, shared aboutt the time that they experimented with fish kill resulting from the oil spill. The "text subject" in this experiment was a local dog.

"Noong kasagsagan na malapit sa amin yung oil spill, nagrereport po kami na may mga fish kill sa amin. Tapos dahil wala pong bumababa na ano po yung gagawin sinubukan po pakainin nung barangay tanod po namin yung isda na namatay doon sa coastline doon sa aso para maipaliwanag sa mga tao na hazardous yung isda na nahuli (When the oil spill was approaching us we reported incidents of fish kill. Since there weren't any orders being handed down to us, one of our barangay tanods fed a fish carcass to a dog to show people that the fish was hazardous to eat)," he recounted.

"Sa madaling salita po namatay si aso doon sa isda. So nag-request po kami ng testing (In other words, the dog died from eating the fish. So we requested for testing)," added Malaluan.

However, he said that no testing was conducted since all the fish carcass was gone when the testers arrived.

The BFAR National Fisheries Laboratory Division clarified during the hearing that the results from their fish sample testing were released Friday last week. These were sent to the provincial government on Saturday.

BFAR said the decision to lift the fishing ban may have been influenced by the test results.

Mimaropa stands for Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan.