Blasted fish from the boxes confiscated from three individuals transporting fish in Cebu City. | Contributed photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Bantay Dagat will be filing charges against three individuals who were caught transporting blasted fish into the city.
Ariel Yburan, Bantay Dagat head, told CDN Digital, that they caught the three individuals transporting 4 boxes of suspected blasted fish on April 26, 2021, along the South Road Properties (SRP) in one of their random checks of vehicles transporting fish to Ceby City.
The four boxes of various types of fishes had deformed innards and were thought to be caused by dynamite fishing, which is an illegal fishing practice according to the Republic Act 10654 or Amended Fisheries Code of the Philippines.
The Bantay Dagat Cebu City head, said that they took time to identify if the fish was blasted because the inspector was not available in the last four days. It was only today, April 30, 2021, that the inspector was available.
Pending the documents needed from the inspector to certify that the fish were blasted, the city government will be filing the official charges by Monday, May 3, 2021.
The identities of the three suspects including two carriers and one shipper have not been revealed pending filing of charges.
“Mao lagi nga wala atong own inspector diri mao na motake time. Wala rasad nato gidetain kay normal filing ra man sa case,” said Yburan.
(Our inspector is not here so it will take time. We also detain them because this is just a normal filing of the case.)
The Bantay Dagat will be forwarding the case to the City Legal Office for proper filing.
Yburan said this should serve as a warning to those who will attempt to smuggle in blasted fish in the city and that the Bantay Dagat had been intensifying its monitoring of those transporting fish to the city.
“Gamay rag mga shipment sa isda karon so mabantayan gyod nato,” said Yburan.
(There are only a few shipments of fish in the city so we can easily monitor them.)
The Bantay Dagat also urged the public to report if they had bought suspected blasted fish to the Bantay Dagat so they could investigate and trace the source.
/dbs
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