Cebu execs, fishers still unaware of shark ban

Tuburan Mayor Democrito Diamante vowed to raise public awareness of a Cebu provincial ordinance protecting all kinds of sharks and discuss it in the next League of Municipalities in the Philippines (LMP) meeting on July 24.

Diamante,  president of the LMP Cebu chapter, admitted that he  was  not familiar with the ordinance.

“Bisan og ako, wala pa ko nakakupot ana nga ordinansaha (Even I am unaware of that ordinance),” he told Cebu Daily News yesterday.

In 2012, the Cebu Provincial Board (PB) passed the Local Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Ordinance which seeks to protect sharks and rays, among other marine resources.

The original ordinance prohibited catching, selling, and trading of threatened or endangered species.

Surprised

With reports of shark meat trading surfacing in September 2013 and the holding of the first national Shark Summit in Cebu in August 2014,  the ordinance was amended to cover all species of sharks within municipal waters of Cebu.

A second Shark Summit is scheduled in July or August this year.

Bantayan Mayor Ian Christopher Escario was surprised when photos of shark meat being sold in his town’s public market circulated on Facebook last week.

He traced the vendors and warned them not to repeat the offense.

The Bantayan mayor admitted that  he, too,  did not know that catching, killing, or selling all kinds of sharks, not just the species identified by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), was illegal in waters of Cebu province.

After a site investigation the other day, the mayor found out that even the vendors don’t know about the Cebu ordinance.

He promised  to mount  posters and tarpaulin banners  in the market notifying vendors of the shark ban.

PB Member Thadeo Ouano, author of the ordinance, said enforcement requires the cooperation of local government units and was the duty of local chief executives.

“How could they create a Bantay Dagat task force if they are not aware of the provincial fisheries code? They should be the ones disseminating the information,” he said.

Majority of Cebu’s towns are fishing communities, Ouano said, and should be aware of the laws protecting their source of livelihood.

Ironically, he said many mayors are not aware of the ordinance.

“I am sure they are also not aware because they did not attend the last shark summit,” he said.

The first national  shark summit was hosted by the Cebu provincial government  at the Capitol in August last year.

Stakeholders agreed to continue conservation measures to protect sharks and other marine wildlife in Cebu.   In Malapascua, Daanbantayan, the presence of thresher sharks attracts divers from all over the world, making the sharks “more valuable alive than dead.”

Ouano said awareness on the province’s fisheries code is not only necessary to protect sharks but to protect all of marine resources as well.

Tuburan, for example, has a 20-kilometer shoreline in northwest Cebu.

Municipal fishers  catch fish mostly for family consumption, Mayor Diamante said.

Diamante said the operations against illegal fishing activities in the town are intensive.

“We don’t have illegal fishing here,” he claimed.