The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture, said it does not expect the oil spill in Oriental Mindoro to put pressure on local fish prices.
“Right now we are not looking at the possibility that it will have an effect on the prices at a national scale,” BFAR Spokesperson Nazario Briguera told the BusinessMirror in an interview.
“It’s summer and we are in the peak season for fishing, so this would mean supply will be available to ensure stable prices.”
Briguera also noted that fishing grounds that were off-limits to fishers due to the closed fishing season are now open. This, he said, gives fishers the opportunity to increase their catch.
BFAR had assured the public that the country would have adequate fish supply during the Holy Week, when demand for seafood spikes.
“We are in the peak season of fishing activity, so we expect to meet the high demand for fish during the Holy Week,” he said.
BFAR said, however, that fish production in Mindoro and nearby provinces may be affected by the continuous leakage of industrial oil from the sunken MT Princess Empress.
Also, Briguera said expensive fuel and postharvest losses remain as the biggest challenges of the fishing industry.
“Oil prices are fluctuating. Sometimes, it increases and affects fishing activities, so the DA-BFAR is implementing a subsidy program and utilizing payao technology for small-scale fisherfolk,” he said.
The Philippines’s farm output last year was reduced by 0.1 percent on an annual basis to P1.75 trillion at constant 2018 prices as better livestock and poultry productions offset contractions in crops and fisheries.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said in a report it published in January that the output of the fisheries subsector in 2022 declined by 5 percent year-on-year.
The value of the country’s agricultural output last year was P1.935 billion lower than the P1.758 trillion recorded amount in 2021, according to the PSA.