Sardine fishing banned anew in Sulu, Basilan

COTABATO CITY – The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BFAR-ARMM) has imposed another ban on fishing tamban or Indian sardine in the Sulu Sea and Basilan Strait from December 2017 to March 1 this year.

The three-month ban, an annual restriction in seven consecutive years, is meant for the sardine specie to reproduce for the fishing season this year, the agency said in a statement released Wednesday by the ARMM’s Bureau of Public Information (BPI).

“Pursuant to Section 2 of Republic Act 8550, or the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998, sardine fishing in the waters of East Sulu Sea, Basilan Strait, and Sibuguey Bay is temporarily suspended to give way to the fish species’ spawning period,” Jerusalem Abdulahim, Fisheries Regulatory and Law Enforcement Division head of the BFAR-ARMM, said.

Under the law, Abdulahim said, violators of the ban will be penalized with confiscation of catch and gear, and a fine equivalent to five times the value of the catch, or a penalty ranging from 150,000 for small-scale fishing to 15-million for large-scale commercial fishing.

Abdulahim said the ban also covers “selling, buying and possession of sardines caught within the conservation area.”

He said BFAR-ARMM’s vessels are patrolling the seas of the island provinces - specifically Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi - to enforce the closed season policy and ensure strict observance of the annual ban.

Abdulahim said some fishing companies usually observe the ban by spending time in renovating their ships during the period while compensating fishing ship workers.

Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) covering July-September 2017, he said, positive growth in tamban production was registered in ARMM due to more fishing trips as a result of good weather conditions and abundance of in-season species in the fishing grounds.