Municipal fisherfolk are bearing the brunt of the high cost of fuel, but what drives them worse is the stiff competition they get from commercial fishers that are now allowed to catch in their traditional fishing ground.

“We used to spend P200–300 a day on fuel, now it’s P700 – just to catch enough fish to pay for the boat ride home,” says Venerando Carbon, a fisherfolk leader of the Tañon Strait Fisherfolk Federation based in Cebu.

Carbon said artisanal fishers need to sail about four to five kilometers from the shore in Tañon Strait to ensure they have catch, as fish in municipal waters have rapidly dwindled due to intrusion of commercial fishing boats.

Carbon’s dilemma is not an isolated case but is commonly shared by thousands of fisherfolk who are economically displaced by commercial fishers while struggling with daily food and fuel costs.

With this difficulty, there is a growing call to restore to local government units the authority over municipal waters and strengthen fisheries governance.

Fisherfolk and civil society groups are rallying behind House Bill 9043 or the “Bantay-Dagat, Yaman-Lokal Act,” a bill authored by Dinagat Island Rep. Kaka Bag-ao. The group said this is an important step to restore fisheries abundance and improve the state of poverty and hunger in coastal communities.

Von Hernandez, vice president of the advocacy group Oceana, says passage of this proposal will give artisanal fisherfolk a fighting chance and will bring relief to small fisherfolk and their families who are barely surviving from the continuous depletion of fish stocks in their fishing grounds.

“Giving LGUs full control over municipal waters is a critical step toward protecting small fishers from relentless commercial encroachment,” Hernandez said.

In 2023, a Malabon court ruling struck down key provisions of the Fisheries Code, including LGU jurisdiction and municipal fishers’ preferential access to the 15-kilometer municipal waters.

The Supreme Court First Division affirmed this ruling the following year, but numerous groups filed petitions to intervene in the case, while the Department of Agriculture–Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR) filed a motion for reconsideration.

Oceana said that while the decision is not yet final, commercial fishing boats have been raiding the 15-kilometer zone with impunity.

Oceana’s Karagatan Patrol detected 3,853 apparent commercial fishing vessels inside municipal waters in March alone, the highest in five years, using Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) night light data.

The groups are now calling on the House leadership and President Marcos Jr. to support the bill and reject any attempt to water down the Fisheries Code.

“No weakening of protections for municipal waters. It’s time to make ocean recovery and genuine support for small fisherfolk a true priority of this administration,” Hernandez added.