Davao City—The regional office of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (Bfar) here said coastal towns surrounding the Davao Gulf should clarify the jurisdiction of overlapping or shared municipal waters.
Fatima M. Idris, regional director of the BFAR, said the issue of exclusivity of municipal waters in and around Davao Gulf is “contestable.” The gulf’s 520-kilometer coastline covers 18 municipalities, 5 cities and 4 provinces in southeastern Mindanao.
In the case of Davao City and Samal Island, the narrowest strait between them in Babak side of Samal and in Lanang side has only a water expanse of less than 7 kilometers. A town or province is allowed to have jurisdiction over municipal waters stretching 15 kilometers from the shoreline.
There is also the lack of delineation of municipal waters among towns in the provinces of Davao del Sur, Davao Occidental, Davao City, Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental.
It has not been an issue, however, in the gulf, for as long as local governments would not bar fishermen from any of these provinces to encroach into waters directly facing other provinces. Idris said the practice has allowed unhampered fishing.
“Fishermen have been doing this for a long time already. They even fish outside of Mindanao,” she said.
Filipino fishermen, though, have been periodically arrested by Indonesian and Palau authorities for encroaching into their fishing grounds as Filipino fishermen follow the trail of the tuna along the tuna highway, which include part of the waters off Southern Mindanao.
Foreign poachers have also been arrested by the Philippine Navy. Two Taiwanese fishing boats were apprehended off the Davao Gulf in 2012, according to Idris.
She said, however, that towns and provinces around the gulf should pass an ordinance if they want to have exclusive authority over the fishing grounds or agree to a sharing arrangement with adjacent localities. This would avoid future legal problems, she said.
Idris issued the announcement after the BFAR issued an order to close the gulf for three months beginning June to allow fish species to spawn freely.
The BFAR adopted the same strategy implemented in the Zamboanga Peninsula and started imposing a three-month fishing ban at the gulf in 2014.
It is during this closed season that fishermen would usually venture out of municipal waters to explore richer fishing grounds.
Image credits: D.A. Photo