Small fishers plead with Supreme Court: Consider our rights, too
MANILA, Philippines – Two municipal fishers are urging the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling that declared unconstitutional the government’s policy of electronically tracking commercial fishing vessels at sea.
The fishers, Pablo Rosales and Ronald Reyes, said the decision has legal consequences for fisherfolk like them whose livelihood depends on the government’s effective implementation of the vessel monitoring system (VMS).
They filed a motion for reconsideration before the High Court on Friday, August 14.
“We are not saying that commercial fishers do not have rights,” read part of Rosales’ statement in Filipino on Monday, August 17. “They have rights. But we have rights too. Our only concern is to not lose the protection over municipal waters just because there are problems in the implementation of VMS.”
While the SC decided to protect the rights of commercial fishers, they said it failed to consider theirs.
“The State is not acting merely as a regulator of private businesses of the respondents,” they said. “It is acting as protector of public fishery resources and of municipal fisherfolk whose livelihood and preferential use of municipal waters are vulnerable to commercial intrusion.”
The decision in question was promulgated on January 21. It affirmed the 2021 decision of Malabon Regional Trial Court Branch 170 that declared Fisheries Administrative Order (FAO) No. 266 unconstitutional. FAO 266 outlined the government’s vessel monitoring measures for Philippine-flagged commercial fishing operators.
In 2021, Rosales and Reyes attempted to intervene in the case when it was still being tried before the Malabon regional court. Their motion was denied.
Rosales is the president of fisherfolk organization Pangisda Pilipinas.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is set to file a motion for reconsideration. BFAR spokesperson Nazario Briguera said the issue remains a battle of arguments and evidence.
“Again, the BFAR is just behind the Office of the Solicitor General,” Briguera said in a mix of English and Filipino in a presser last August 11. “BFAR will support by giving facts, and give other forms of support that the Solicitor General will need [such as] new facts that they may use.”
‘Legal void’
In granting a decision favorable to three commercial fishers, the SC said it is bound to preserve the “sacrosanct rights of its people” over the State’s interest.
But in his dissenting opinion, Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen said the decision created a “legal void” in fisheries regulation.
“The majority creates a legal void in our regulatory landscape for fisheries by declaring Fisheries Administrative Order No. 266 unconstitutional,” Leonen wrote. “Our regulators will lose access to the tools necessary to establish a sustainable fishing industry, making them blind to fishing activities within our waters.”
Leonen cited the judiciary’s role “as one of the three co-equal branches of the government” in sharing the same mandate of preserving natural resources.
“Judges who handle cases that assail government regulations over the use of natural resources are duty-bound to carefully assess how their decision will impact not only the parties or the ecology, but also our peoples’ continued access to the country’s natural resources,” a portion of the dissenting opinion read. – Rappler.com
