Shark Meat (Gary Cases)
RAMONITO Javier, a street food vendor, buys 20 kilos of fish balls and 10 kilos of tempura everyday from a seafood processing plant in Lapu-Lapu City.
He is aware that shark meat is one of the ingredients of the food he sells to school children, but he believes it is not the main ingredient but only a substitute in case barla/diwit (cutlass fish), budburon (roundhead scad) and karaho (lizard fish) are not available.
“Na-timingan lang siguro to na ang nadakpan kay iho. Pero okay raman na kay gagmay raman na siya na iho ang gamiton,” Javier told Cebu Daily News outside the factory of Tirso’s Fish Food Product in Sudtonggan, Basak, Lapu-Lapu City.
A truckload of thresher shark meat was seized Wednesday night by the Cebu Provincial Anti-Illegal Task Force after they were tipped off on the questionable cargo estimated to weigh 470 kilos of frozen cuts of shark meat packed in plastic bags, shark skin and other varieties of fish products that covered the shark meat underneath.
Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR-7) Information Officer Alma Saavedra admits that after issuing a shipping permit, they rarely verify the contents of the cargo because of a lack in personnel.
Unless there is an informant, what the BFAR can do is merely “spot-checking,” said Saavedra.
Last Wednesday, information given to the Cebu Provincial Anti-Illegal Task Force resulted in the apprehension of truck driver Allan Empinado and his companions Daniel Amistoso and Gerry Atillo. They are now detained at the Naga Police station.
They transported the shark meat in an Isuzu Elf truck marked, “Tirso’s Fish Food Product” on its door and concealed it under other fish meat, including cutlass fish.
CDN checked the plant in a remote barangay in Lapu-Lapu City yesterday but the staff said the owners were not around. The person who answered the contact number posted on their gate also said no one could give an official statement on the issue.
The Provincial Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Ordinance of Cebu bans fishing or taking into possession, transporting, dealing or selling or disposing of threatened and endangered species like thresher sharks, sun fish, whale sharks and manta rays.
Violators will have to pay P1,000 per kilo of the meat transported or disposed.
The shark meat, according to the driver and his aides, are used to make the popular street food tempura and fish balls.
Vince Cinches, a campaigner at Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said shark meat has a high mercury content that may cause blindness, loss of coordination or even death.
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