THE testimony at the Senate by a regional environment official on Wednesday, pointing to overstocking by greedy operators and agricultural pollution as the main culprit in the fish kill that has ruined the livelihood of thousands in Taal Lake, should not come as a surprise anymore.
In fact, while Director Nilo Tamoria represented the Calabarzon office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) at the inquiry, the situation he outlined to senators mirrors the conditions that have been reported in Pangasinan—where two towns were afflicted with fish kill simultaneously with Batangas’s eight towns—as well as in other vital waterways the past several years.
It’s a recurring theme, a tragic episode that will keep haunting us for as long as we delude ourselves into thinking we can simply point to climate change or some such occurrence without confronting the worst enemy here: greed.
In simple detail, Director Tamoria told senators many operators of fish cages had overstocked, which, in turn, triggered the sudden change in temperature in the waters at Taal Lake.
That testimony was bolstered by another expert who also appeared before the Senate Committee on Agriculture. There is nothing “natural” in the fish kill that started in areas around Taal Lake, according to UP Marine Science Institute Deputy Director Gil Jacinto. A combination of agricultural pollution and overcrowding of fish cages did it, Jacinto said.
The details of such overcrowding are provided by Asis Perez, the newly appointed director of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). A standard fish pen in Taal is supposed to contain not more than 10 tons of cultured fish, he told Karen Davila in a recent episode of Headstart. And yet, he said, “there are cages that have 25 tons…the fish will really die.”
The overcrowding of fish cages is a common malpractice, one that has been pointed to by experts since the 1970s, each time a fish kill occurred in any of the major lakes, especially Laguna de Bay—where many retired military officers have invested in large fish pens, as exposed by investigative reporter Joel Paredes, writing then in the Times Journal in 1980.
Agricultural pollution, however, is an even more insidious factor. It turns out that greedy operators have recklessly dumped fertilizer, i.e., chicken manure, into the lake. This and the decaying feeds that lie at the lake bottom pollute the lake and speed up the oxygen depletion, killing the fish in the process.
Sadly, some officials sounded as if this was the first time they were confronted with fish kills, when the problem had stared both national and local authorities in the eye for years. In local lingo, “dinededma ang problema.”
One of those deeply frustrated by this attitude of dancing around the problem is former Environment secretary Lito Atienza who, if he had his way, would want the fish pens to go, especially in Laguna de Bay, because they obstruct the free flow of water.
He recalled that there was a lot of to-do about how to save the lake a few years ago, but for some reason, whenever the matter of dismantling fish pens was raised, those concerned seemed to simply dance around it.
In his almost three-year stint at the DENR, Atienza launched massive clearing operations against fish pens in the 99,000-hectare Laguna Lake, Taal Lake, Manila Bay. With the help of some local officials like Gov. Ayong Maliksi, they cleared the area, but the fish pens have since returned, with a vengeance, it seems. Meanwhile, in the process of waging the cleanup, Atienza even backed environmental lawyer Tony Oposa in the case he had filed before the Supreme Court years before—the first time a DENR secretary supported a complainant in such a case.
There is a continuing mandamus issued by the High Court for this landmark case, ordering the national and local government agencies to perform their tasks in cleaning up Manila Bay’s waters. The High Court order is there, a stark reminder of how difficult it is to reconcile good intentions with political will in a country where regulators who do their job seriously are shunted aside and problems never go away while their worst manifestations, like fish kills, resurface every so often.
Meanwhile, in this particular problem, the threat to the country’s 500 or so rivers and water bodies continues. According to Atienza, well over half are already degraded, most prominent of these being Laguna and Taal lakes, Manila Bay, Bolinao, Buhi and Lanao lakes. Pampanga River is also heavily silted and cluttered with fish pens, especially at its mouth in Manila Bay area, and this has adversely impacted on other bodies of water in Luzon, he lamented. He expressed full confidence, though, in the capability and the will of the incumbent DENR chief, Ramon Paje, to do the job—if only the politicians and generals would let him.
Obviously, according to Atienza, any cleanup in these waters will only be temporary for as long as they suffer from the pollution triggered by these fish pens and fish cages. He insists that the fish pens must go because they block the flow of water in the lakes and rivers, while residual fish feed lying underneath are transformed into pollutants.
The BFAR claims it has made headway in dismantling the illegal fish cages—by half, from 14,000 many years ago, to 7,000; with 1,000 more to be dismantled within the year.
Whether this will be good enough is dicey at best. As things stand, the man-made disaster has thus far cost an estimated amount of P200 million in losses in Batangas and Pangasinan. It’s a huge blow to efforts to ensure food security for Filipinos, at a time when bigger neighbors like China are willing to shoot fishermen within their country’s own territory, while building elaborate military garrisons to serve as “shelter” for Chinese fishermen in Philippine waters. But that’s another—more chilling—story.
