Law creating Department of Fisheries discussed

A technical working group met to discuss and refine House Bills 227, 3184, 3739, and 3178 which provide for the creation of a Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, last February 9 in Quezon City.

AQD was represented in the meeting by Dr. CL Marte, Mr. RF Agbayani, Dr. MRR Eguia, and Ms. GVH Garcia.
The meeting was organized upon the motion of the Committee on Government Reorganization and the Committee on Aquaculture and Fisheries Resources of the Philippine House of Representatives.

Aside from the technical/scientific community representatives, fisherfolk, NGOs, and government agency representatives also shared their perspectives and impressions as each section of the draft bill was reviewed.
The outcome of the meeting, which is a consolidated draft bill, will be presented in another TWG meeting to be attended by the same sectoral representatives but this time with the house bill proponents.
Until then, additional comments and suggestions still need to be raised.

For one, Dr. CL Marte believes that section 4 of the draft house bill defining the jurisdiction of DFAR should be expanded to include municipal waters since local governments are not as capable in aquatic resource management as the proposed national government agency.

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