FMA: The New Kid on the Block

Last July 16 I wrote a blog that solving overfishing will effectively reduce poverty within the fisheries sector. I enumerated six key solutions. Two of them is  investing in science capacity and find a better governance framework that will solve the fragmented management of our fishing grounds.

Three years later came FAO 263 creating the Fisheries Management Areas (FMA). The entire fishing ground was subdivided into 12 major areas using ecological rather than political boundaries, identifying the zoogeographies of most important commercial species. The policy institutionalizes and mainstream science in the policy development and opens up flexibility in the creation of appropriate governance structure that stakeholders will agree on.

FMA is to manage large sections of our  fisheries waters and is the same large scale conservation areas like the ecoregions (WWF) and large marine ecosystems (LME) of FAO for biodiversity conservation. FMA looks at the ecological boundaries of major species and the human dimension of stakeholders dependent on these fisheries resources;- thus in full agreement to the EAFM principles that the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) advocates.

But,  like any new innovative  approach, it will be disruptive.  It could open new opportunities to improve the fragmented management of fishing grounds, provide efficiency in administrative side like registration and licensing, improve flow of information from the local to national, review and improve policies among many others.

But it could also disrupt those that benefit from the current system of inefficiency.

The disruption it will cause many stakeholders to comment and criticize. This is expected and all criticisms should be heard.

My advice is to give the FMA its chance to be developed and be tested in different areas with different characteristics.  I look at it in a very positive way: a way  to finally rid of things that don't work: commercial for BFAR versus municipal for LGUs, passive versus active gears, with our without 10,1-15 km distance, etc.

All we need is to open our minds, participate in the discussions, argue with science support and
chill out. The solutions may be forthcoming.

Announcement: Back From Hibernation

FISHVIEW09 is back once again. 
July 2016 was the last blog I wrote sharing my thoughts on demolishing the fishpens at Laguna Lake.

The main reason for this long hiatus was I finally made that leap of faith by retiring early  to start a fish farming business. But because of withdrawal issues arising from years of conservation work,  I also accepted part time work with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

Yes, after three years of doing fishy business and working with a dream team pushing for better fisheries management, I am compelled to share my experiences and more importantly my fishviewers on current and future issues of the fisheries sector.

Watch out. I intend to at least write once a week to share my wishy fishy thoughts.

Fishy Thoughts At 34000 Feet Above Sea Level

 I am crossing the Sulu Sea, awed by the beauty of small islets dotting the seascape. Amid these serene views, my thoughts linger on President Digong's State of Nation Address where he spent considerable time talking on the nexus of poverty, environment degradation and development: asking why in areas of mining operations, there is abject poverty among the people. In the same token he spoke about the inequity of fishing access in Laguna lake, that by promoting fish farming to address food security, small scale fishers are marginalized.

These observations translate as to how this current administration will envision on .reducing that 40% poverty rate in the fisheries sector: The critical agencies tasked to develop a cohesive developmental agenda between agriculture, fisheries and environment and trade and investments should work towards a new framework. This is exactly the way into the future. This calls for a blue economy approach, promoting a circular economy, improving efficiency and use of resources under a changed climate regime and on the process, getting more value out from less resources.  

With this thought, I will pursue the idea to draft a white paper along with a friend from DENR on an ocean framework for the country, expanding and providing more focus on DENR and the Department of Agriculture (DA) on  their role of not just regulatory but providing leadership in sustainable development.

For this to happen, the departments of environment and natural resources and the agriculture department must work together a long-term sustainable development agenda designed to eradicate poverty in this country. Wishful thinking? Perhaps but change is coming.

Hope for Lake Fishers Coming

Digong was  right.

Fishing area access of small fishers have long been impinged by the operation of fish farming activities in all lakes. Laguna lake is the biggest example. Every time we fly out of Manila, the issue of inequity of fishing access stares upon us. The area of fish pens cover just 25% of the lake, so the argument of the LLDA goes, but the area of that 25% is what used to be the main fishing grounds of the small scale fishers. It is the area that blocks the path of fishers to their fishing grounds.  It is the area that is important for the indigenous fish species in order to complete its life cycle. It is also major source of conflict where many fishers have died in pursuit of claiming their traditional fishing ground that one day was fenced off and guarded by heavily armed guards.

  

Impacts

Sadly, the laguna lake fisheries mirrors how our country’s fisheries resources have been mismanaged all along.  Similar to Taal, Sampaloc, Lake Buhi and the rest of Philippine lakes, fish pens, fish cages and other fish farming have overrun the use of these lakes and on the process, displaced the small scale fishers of their fishing grounds, deprived them of their livelihood. The impact is catastrophic. The great abundance of the traditional fish species are now rarely caught. In its place include the invasive species such as tilapia, janitor fish, the knife fish. These species have all but eaten up the  tasty native fishes such as ayungin, hito, dalag, puyo and guorami.

Taal lake is another fitting example of how not to manage lake fisheries. Tawilis, yes that famous fresh water sardines, is a delicious fish and with high value. Its production in the 1970s and 1980s hovers around 70,000 thousand tons. In 2012,  its  production is barely 100 metric tons. It was replaced by culture of tilapia in cages producing a meager 50,000 tons per year. It gained notoriety when the lake ecosystem collapsed as a result of culturing more fish beyond the lake capacity  to cleanse itself. The economic loss was massive, fish kills fouled the whole region and  impacting even the thriving tourism industry.

Misplaced Priority?

The local government are tasked to managed the resources but has no idea on how to balance development with maintaining the environment. The immediate impacts are with the poor fishers. If the tawilis production were maintained, the value generated from tawilis fisheries will dwarf the tilapia production from the lake and the environment of Taal lake will have remained pristine.

But why did the local government allow it to happen?

Greed. Ignorance or Both. Fish farming are businesses and LGUs get revenues from business permits and taxes. But if we take the value of lost livelihood, amount of subsidies that LGUs give to support the poor fishers, and the value of loss of ecosystem function will be staggering.

It is a no brainer. Wild capture, when properly managed, will enable fishers to live way above the poverty threshold for generations. No fish farming, no matter how efficient, can replace the benefits coming from well managed capture fisheries.  It is sad to note that when fisheries collapses, fish farming is promoted to replace food production instead of investing on rebuilding them.

Why?

Because fisheries bureaucrats are evaluated not how the fisheries is performing but through increase in production, often at the expense of the environment.J

 Today, similar to Laguna lake, fish cages occupy large areas of the lake, depriving local fishers the sufficient area where tawilis could grow in abundance. Escapees of tilapia and introduced catfish called Pangasius (market name: cream dory), feed on tawilis and the wild capture fisheries of the lake has become more of tilapia and catfish fisheries.

Unless we do drastic measures, these lakes will all die from pollution arising from bad culture practices. The tawilis and the ayungins will disappear from our plates, depriving us of our culture eating our staple food consisting of rice and fish coming from our lakes. BFAR has set standards for culture but business permits are given by LGUs without due regard to the negative impacts of overproduction. Monitoring of  these farms against this standards are yet  to be undertaken. Sadly, its always the poor wild capture fishers that are impacted by this bad practice.

With the directive of President Digong to give back their fishing grounds, brings ample  hope that with proper management of the capture fisheries, poverty among lake fisherfolks will be a thing of the past.

Solving Poverty Among Fishers:

The future of the wild capture fisheries industry looks very bleak, Overall catch is declining resulting in continued reduction of incomes among fisherfolks. In the last six years, poverty rates among fisherfolks increased from 30% to 40%. If the number of fishers is 1.6 million, we are talking about 450 thousand families!

 What the new leadership in the agriculture and fisheries sector could do is focus on the single most pressing problem: declining fisheries productivity caused by inability of BFAR and the LGUs to effectively address OVERFISHING.

The issue is not new. As early as the mid 1970's, groundfish- and reef-based resources and in the mid 1980's for the pelagic resources, fisheries scientists have brought the issue to the fore. But this issue was addressed not be regulating fishing but by expanding to new fishing grounds and allowing the number of fishers to increase to a level that no sane politician will touch this issue with a ten feet pole. Regulating the number of fishers has social and economic consequences. The mantra of previous leaders to address this issue using paltry solutions and leave the next leadership to tackle this problem, has allowed the problem to reach a level of humongous proportions!

Today, we have exhausted all fishing grounds up to our EEZ and some of our fishers, both large and small scale poach in neighboring countries! No wonder, fishers travel for 4-5 days non stop to reach the highly volatile fishing grounds of the Spratly Island groups, creating another subgroup of OFWs: overseas fisheries workers that are separated from their families most of the time under high risk.

It is of no surprise too that fishers that opted to remain fish in nearshore waters undertake illegal fishing as they have nowhere to go and they need to feed their families.

How do you solve the problem of OVERFISHING:
Simply said, solving overfishing means reducing the amount of fishing pressure to a level that will generate the sustainable yield. What are the necessary actions to solve this problem?

1. Find innovative ways to reduce fishing intensity - it takes  a combination of policies to effectively reduce fishing intensity. The ways to do this will depend on the amount of excess capacity to be reduced and in consideration of the socio-economic impacts.

2. Generate Science to support policy - getting the accurate information on level of fish biomass and fishing effort are the two essential information to determine how much reduction of fishing effort to be done and what level of population is aimed for.

3. Invest in capacity building for research - we need more scientists to analyze information that process data into bases for policy.

4.  Provide sufficient funds for fisheries research. BFAR will need to invest at least 10% of the of its budget to undertake research, in order to fund cost of research.

5.  Reform governance framework that provides a seamless management of fisheries resources irrespective of fishing area or fishing grounds between municipal and commercial waters.

With Change Given a Chance, Fishview09 reemerges from hibernation

Im back! After six long years of hibernation, my desire to write again was inspired or better said, triggered by hope that change is happening. I am from the Philippines and I care about this country. But during the past administration where people elected a weak president and backed by greedy politicians,  I stopped writing as there is nothing to expect from an elite leadership that is ignorant of the plight of the poor.

Today, you see lots of changes,and that brings a lot hope. Peasant leaders, anti poverty advocates, social entrepreneurs are appointed to take on leaderships on these areas. The blogs I will write will be personal opinions, observations and permutations of my wayward thinking. My objective is to provide unsolicited advice and ideas which I hope will catalyze debate and discussions.

Selectively, I will veer away from political analysis, except in areas of environment, particularly in the agriculture and fisheries sector where most of our farmers and fishers live below the acceptable level of income to live and enjoy life comfortably.

So  hang on, dear fellow bloggers and readers, you will enjoy posts from fishview09. The first few blogs will dwell on fisheries and agriculture.

Dengue Plague: A Man-Made Pandemic

Its time to write again - to share my ideas of contributing to solutions on dengue.

You may wonder my use of the term plague and pandemic. Plague, because the infected number has reached 200,000 people, more than double the threshold of 100,000 and pandemic, because of the very fast expansion or spread of the disease.

Let us analyze the problem, its root causes, and more importantly, why current solutions will not work. Why is Dengue is man-made.

1. you may have wondered why dengue and malaria did not infect our aborigines or even wiped them out as there were no anti-biotics and doctors to diagnose and hospitals to speak of. But they survived. Nature provided them with some sort of immunity by living with the mosquitoes over thousand of years. Presumably, there was only one serotpe of the dengue virus and humans before have developed immunity to it.

2. mosquitoes or exactly the species of Aedis egyptii were obligatory forest species. this means that before we started clearing our forests and turning them into agricultural lands and our cities, they were strictly confined to these places, in the highlands with cool temperature,dark places and high humidity. Thanks to our developmental mindset of clearing our forest, and changed the landscape, these mosquitoes with their virus, in order survive, has adapted to our way of life and without their forests and continue to evolved in different types.

3. we in the cities, have provided them with a perfect alternate biome: plastics that never rot that collects rain water and are logged in dark places with lower temperature and high humidity.

A man-made disease requires a man-made solution, but this is not happening because we fail to see this point. Let us look at some possible ideas.

1. Tracking of infected patients - As a pandemic virus, we humans are the host, the transporter of the disease. Which is why we need to track each and every patient exact location of his residence. If we could simply ask their exact residences,where they have traveled during the incubation period of the dengue, we will be able to follow the infection route. this is because all dengue carrying mosquitoes are permanent vectors, that means, once a mosquito is infected, every bite on any humans will get infected.

This information would allow a focused, comprehensive and well coordinated action to remove their habitats in places of incidence. Resources are simply too small for us to have a comprehensive cleanup while doing a random action will not solve the problem.

if we put all this information in digital format and map this out, this will be a powerful tool for government on where to focus its investment.

2. Avoid association with those infected - if we do the tracking of infection, we may be in for a surprise that some of the new infections could have come from places such as hospitals, malls, bus stops, places where you were even for a short period within the biting distance of another person that has dengue.

3. Ensure that infected people don't get bitten again - imagine a mosquito getting a bite in a hospital and infecting 200 others! how sure are our hospitals that these are mosquito free?Imagine an infected mosquito having a biting spree in the pediatric ward?

4. Be practical and wear protective clothes when going to high risk areas. the information on point number if done properly would provide the preventive measure.

5. Getting the right data - there are for serotypes of dengue - do we know the infection rates of each one, where each one occurs, how each serotypes develop in correlation with age, gender, etc? SHARE THE DATA - if incidences are recorded, lots of people with expertise in GIS mapping and other tools could help the DOH develop a predictive algorithm adnot just monitor on real time how this plague spreads.

6. Stop those silly gadgetry's that DOST is promoting like the mosquito trap, or a herbal cure (tawa-tawa). Scientist around the world are working on a vaccine that would not likely be in the market until 2015. According to Webster et al. 2009, the ideal vaccine is safe, effective after one or two injections, covers all serotypes, does not contribute to ADE (anti-dependent enhancement), is easily transported and stored, and is both affordable and cost-effective.

Vaccine development is a slow process of testing, and proclaiming that we are close to applying the vaccine would make us the ka-TAWA-TAWA to the whole word. SUSMARYOSEP!

Bringing Taal Lake to Life: Preventing Another Fish Kill

In a very recent news release, the BFAR warned of another fish kill. This is expected and as I predicted, will continue to occur in such regularity. The reason is obvious, the damage inflicted on the lake has seriously undermined the ability of the lake to sustain life. The cages continue to operate because of the lifeline provided by the 50 pumps.

BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources) should take action to bring back the ecosystem to a life sustaining mode. This is a very tall order that would have a very high social and economic cost. While actions of BFAR to monitor the oxygen levels and enhance oxygenation of water by running 50 pumps a short-term option, these are pallative solutions.

BFAR should develop a restoration plan that aims to reduce the anoxic stratum. There is no other way but to do this:
1. Suspend operation of ALL CAGES for 6 months. Allow cages to finish the harvest before the 6 month ban. The potential loses of this action is prohibitive but much cheaper than the value of the damage to the ecosystem.
2. Provide safety nets for all workers directly affected. Compute the value of the cost for the safety nets.
3. Let the owners of the fish cages and the local governments that gave the permits to shoulder the costs.
4. During the 6-month lake recovery period, BFAR should continue to monitor the lake conditions, stop the engineering solutions to aerate the lake and undertake a modelling study to determine the biological capacity of the lake to accommodate cages, a cost benefit analysis of different scenarios on usage of the lake like a) a no-cage scenario with only small scale capture fisheries in the lake; b)a combination of wild capture cum cage culture;

The decision to take would rest on the results of the study. The 6 months reprieve would also show us the restorative capacity of the lake, providing us with knowledge of how nature works, and the guidance to handle similar future events.

Should BFAR choose the status quo, recovery of the lake would take forever because:
1. the cages present would continue to pollute the lake and improvement, assuming the cages are doing good practices, would be slow with no guarantee it would be restored back.
2. it would be more expensive as the pumps would continue to make the fish survive but this additional cost in form of subsidy and is not incorporated into the price of the fish. I suggest BFAR stop the use of the pumps to artificially sustain cage culture, the money instead should go to providing support for the displaced workers.
3. At the current state of the health of the lake, it is highly possible the fish disease outbreak risk is high because with lower oxygen levels, the fish in the lake are under stress.This could compromise the palatablity of the fish from the lake.

In the end, a status quo scenario would end up more expensive, providing us with less healthy fish that is subsidized by taxpayers money. NOT A VERY PALATABLE OPTION

A Fishview: Good and Bad Practice in the aftermath of the Fishkill

In my earlier blog,i outlined what is happening in Taal lake and why fish kills occur. The lack of oxygen is one of the many manifestations of a disturb ecosystem where existing practice of fish rearing grossly violates laws of nature.

What should done:
1.There is a need to study the circulation pattern of Taal lake (or any natural lake) before location of cages could be identified. Cages, even if it is floating hinders, alters and redirects flow of current that impedes its natural process of replenishment of nutrients and water.

2. The number and stocking density of each fish cage should be carefully estimated to conform to the natural carrying capacity of the lake. Current policy simply regulates the number of cages but is silent on the amount of water enclosed by the cage, a more important consideration as the density or the number of fish to be stocked should be highly regulated. This is key to maintaining the integrity of the water quality.

3. Establish an independent lake monitoring body that implements and regulates the lake policies. A monitoring team should be created to monitor the quality of lake water.

4. All cage operators should secure from the DENR an Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC)before being issued by the local government of the necessary business permits. Currently this is not being done but such policy exist under the Fisheries Code (RA 8550).

5. Before any ECC will be given by DENR,an environmental bond should be required to be deposited by the fish cage owner as security that when such fish kills or any environment-related disruption occur or a violation of existing ECC, the money could be used to rectify the damage.

6. If the government is keen on providing livelihood to the local fisherfolk, minimize the cages and invest in replenishment of the natural fish stock in the lake. CONVERT THE LAKE INTO A WILD FISHERY. GET RID OF ALL THE CAGES. It would serve more people, no extra government expenses on rebuilding the cages or providing altenate livelihood in case of fishkills. Simply said, a wild caught lake fishery would provide more food, job security and livelihood than all those fish cages combined. The fish don't need to be fed, no worries about overfeeding, pollution arising from bad culture practices and no corruption of local governments by the so callled investors.

7. To be really equitable, right to erect cages should be raffled, given to small scale operations rather than the large ones. A maximum of three years lease period that is not renewable. Note that the ROI is less than a year for a cage of 5x5.

8. For Bureau of Internal Revenue to really look into the income of these cage owners that earn a minimum of half a million per cage per year. I'll bet that none of these operators paid honestly taxes based on their earnings.

9. Remove from the local government unit the regulatory function and transfer this to the bureau of fisheries. Afterall, fish swims and water quality has no bouundaries

What should not be done:
As expected, we hear both local and national government officials offering help and subsidies. Some are good but many are wrong. Below is a wish list of what should not be done

1. It is wrong to provide assistance to the cage operators. They are the ones responsible (both legal and illegal)for overstocking the lake over time, polluting slowly the lake through their greed and through bad fish rearing practices. The legal ones knows the illegal ones and they are to blame for not reporting the illegal ones.

2. To provide subsidies and other support for restocking or rebuilding their cages

3. To simply destroy the illegal ones. the structures and nets should be confiscated and burned so that it could not be reused. Better yet not to allow any fish cages in the lakes.

4. For governments to do the cleaning of the mess the private sector created.

Who are the winners and the losers of this fish kill?

The losers of the fish kill are the people around the lake, the tourists and those dependent on the tourism sector. I would not consider the cage owners as losers as this is simply just a temporary setback, having relished its profits for many years.

The main winners will be the hatchery owners that supply the fingerlings and seeds for thhe cage operators. They are now all smiles and take notice that prices of bangus and tilapia fingerlings have gone up.

A Fishview on the Fish Kills

Fish kills stink. Like the rancid fish oil going through the decay process, the main reason for the massive deaths of fish in fish cages and natural lakes is MISMANAGEMENT and GREED. It is not the lack of oxygen that every Juan de la Cruz have been told. Lack of oxygen is a manifestation that nature is reacting to human intervention of a natural system. Let us analyze in greater detail what was happening and use Taal lake to represent all the natural lakes (there are man-made lakes, e.g. result of open pit mining) of the country.

Taal lake is a classic oligotrophic lake example which is deep, with very little circulation because its exit to the sea through a river is very shallow. Because of this character, only the top portion has circulation that go as deep as its sill. Now, if you put there large number of cages and without any consideration on its natural circulation pattern, these made made structures hinder or changes the circulation pattern, disrupting the replenishment of nutrients from the sea etc and more importantly its vertical circulation. Ecological disruption #1.

Now the fish needs to be fed because oligotrophic lakes is not very productive. The excess feeds (arising from poor culture practices) and the fish droppings would initially contribute to the fertility in form of increased total N. Many of these excess food and droppings accumulate on the bottom and never rot because of lack of oxygen at the bottom and, partly also because of the high sulfur dioxide content, rendering the bottom layer, anoxic. Over time as these excess food and droppings continue to settle and accumulate, the anoxic portion of the lake becomes higher and higher. Ecological disruption #2.

The vertical temperature profile of Oligotropic lakes is highly stratified. This stratification normally disappears or get reduced when cold, dense water from rain settles to the bottom displacing the anoxic warm water layer to the surface. This happens only very seldom, perhaps once every two or three years.

What probably happened last week was that the anoxic part was almost at the surface where small amount of rain triggered the vertical circulation. On normal situation where the anoxic part is just a small percentage of the lake water, these layer, when coming up are oxidized by the upper water layers. But this time when a huge part of the lake water is already without any oxygen, the oxidized water at the surface is not enough to maintain a dissolve oxygen level sufficient for fish in the cages to survive.

What are the consequences of the fish kill? The investments and loss of livelihood in the fisheries sector represent a minor cost to the overall loses that media failed to account for. These are:

1. Loss of biodiversity. what we are seeing are fish in the cages. what about other fish species like the tawilis, an endemic sardines. what about the fishes that have no bladder that sink at the bottom, the other organisms, the snails, the insects that need the lake for their young to survive, the algae, the primary producers that start the food chain, all these could not function because of our greed to make profits?
2. Collapse of the ecosystem integrity. This by far is the most serious impact of mismanaged fish cages. the whole process of life cycle in the lake is disturbed and we do not know its consequences.
3. Land based impacts - tourism sector, a major source of livelihood is just one of the directly hit by the fish kill, the boat that ferries, resorts, horse rides, and thenumerous peddlers, suppliers of goods and services.
4. Health - impacts to health could run up to millions as bans on sale of fish reached the markets.

Our local managers need to understand that normality is not restored when bangus would not die in the cages, or when water clears up, or when the foul odor disappears. The impacts on the lake will be felt on the land, by humans and non humans,not just by fishers but by farmers, tourists, and all those that support and dependent on the lake.

Normality returns only after we see that human activities like rearing fish obeys the laws of nature, that profit is not the main governing policy but respect of nature.

When fish kills occur, it means that nature complains and fights back. Its consequences is wide and could be long lasting. Nobody gains and everybody loses.

On Rising Fuel Prices: An analysis of the jeepneys

Who or which sector is most vocal on the issue of rising fuel prices: If the airtime devoted to interviews with sectors - i would say, its the transport sector, particularly the jeepneys, and to a lesser extent, the taxis.

First, because jeepney transport associations are and has been, well organized and form a powerful bloc. But this should be viewed on a positive note because the association provides the loud voices to represent its members. Quite lately, with the rising fuel prices, it has become more of noise than advocacy, and have used this association, to blackmail government agencies. It does so with impunity, using the riding public as the reason, to push its agenda to get subsidies and threaten us commuters with their transport strike.

Let us view the jeepney transport system in terms of cost and benefit to ALL sectors.
1. The fuel diesel has increased by 8 pesos since start of the year alone. Just for the sake of computation, if every jeepney consumes about 30 liters per day, then at today's prices at say at 46 pesos, then each jeepney pays for P1,380 pesos per day for fuel.
2. Now let us further compute,that a route for example of Fairview to Quiapo has a distance of 15 km (estimate), each jeepney covers about 30 km per round trip and makes 4 trips per day for a total of 120 km. Using 30 liters for the 120km travelled translates to a fuel efficiency of four, just FOUR (4) LITERS PER km,. a far cry from city driving using a well maintained engine, say a 2.5 liter diesel, to about 10 km/ liter.
3. This means that with a well maintained engine, jeepneys will only be consuming less than half or just 12 instead of 30 liters. Their fuel investment daily should only be only 552 pesos and not 1380 pesos. This is savings that potentially could go to the drivers of about 820 pesos daily. Instead, these are spent on fuel and goes as sales and earnings of the oil companies.

4.Using these figures, we get the following statistics:
There are 202,891 registered jeepneys with the Land Transportation Office of which a quarter or 50,085 units are in Metro Manila.
The potential loss of income of each jeepney driver is 820 pesos which goes to the oil companies instead, or for the jeepney fleet operating in metro manila, is a whooping P41.47 million daily or using just 300 days operation per year, translates to P12.4 billion yearly at today's prices. How much was the intended government subsidy again?

5. In terms of fuel saved - the 18 liters/ day saved by each jeepney in MM is equal to 901,530 liters of diesel per day or 270.5 million liters annually.

6. if we pursue a fuel efficient jeepney fleet, who will be the gainers:
The jeepney drivers - as the 828 pesos will become part of their income.
The riding public - as there is no need for a fare hike. this windfall income is much more than what jeepney drivers are asking for increase.
The government on several aspects: lesser importation of diesel, no need for the subsidy and preservation of the holy grail of the government, the VAT income that could go to the development of renewable energy.
Every Filipino as the quality of air would improve considerable- cascading its effects on better health of Filipinos,less hospital bills and medicines and more productivity as people get sick less.

7. Now, the losers if jeepneys become efficient:
All those in the trade of oil, from gas stations to large oil companies as sales would greatly be reduced. As a consequence, traders and oil companies will become more competitive (rather than colluding)in plying their trade.
The owners of jeepneys that would need to install efficient engines.this is short term pain over long term gain.
Aha, the corrupt ones in the LTOs and DENR, that allow these jeepneys to pass the emission test. Question: have you heard of any passenger jeepney that did not pass the emission test? Grapevine gossip has it that large jeepney associations are exempt from subject to emission test?
The Jeepney associations - lose their potency as there will be no big issue to pursue. They might loose their income from the collections made at distinct points in metro manila. The one at 15TH AVENUE collects 30 pesos per day for those fleet plying the fairview cubao routes and another booth at Fairview.Pretty well organized. They say it is association dues, for what and for whom.

THINK AGAIN, THERE IS NO NEED TO INCREASE THE FARES OF JEEPNEYS nor SUBSIDIZE their fuel or raise jeepney fares. The solution is simple enough. The savings generated by efficient jeepneys is more than enough to offset the diesel price increases. Its a win -win situation.

P.S. What is surprising is that in Visayas and Mindanao, prices of diesel is 5 pesos higher, but the fare rate is the same, the numbers of commuters are much smaller, yet they survive and complain much much less.

ENJOY THIS RIDE

I'm Back : going bananas on fuel prices for wrong reason

Its been a while since I last posted on this blog: One of the reasons is this:

The Philippine News media - has changed in the last few months in the way news are reported - highly reactionary to events rather than proactive; becoming a mouthpiece of interest groups rather than making an independent assessment. I will be focusing on my blogs with the hope to provide another perspective and to give readers the other side of things.

On rising fuel prices - the topic hugs the airwaves (i am an avid AM radio fan, not TV) and regularly hear the wails of radio commentators - lambasting government for the price hikes - as if the government could do something about it. Fact is - high prices of fossil fuel are here to stay - with dwindling sources, expensive methods of extraction and huge demand from galloping economies (BRIICS) that is not about to wane, its about time that the media refocus itself rage by engaging the people on ways to save energy consumption (fuel, electricity) and on urging the government to invest NOT ON SUBSIDIES but on putting the country on path to independence from fossil fuel. We are rich in geothermal resources, solar energy and wind. How much would the subsidy that the government is allotting for the transport section alone? How much has the government invested in renewable energy research and prototyping? Do your math on the cost benefit of these two investment path and compute it over say, 20 years. We know the answer.

Why ERAP is Popular

a former president who is convicted,
a deposed president who was convicted of plunder?
a sinner president who lacks the moral fiber to govern;
and who is now implicated in double murder?

yet he is popular. WHY?

Ask the press, the journalists and the media why?
Ask why reporters who keep on reporting and publishing every garbage he says?
Ask a field reporter who is star-struck every time he gets to interview the convicted plunderer;
Ask why reporters do'nt ask him direct questions?
Ask why publishers keep him in the media and in front pages of newspapers?
Ask why media cant simply IGNORE him?

is it because it boils down to getting "exclusive" news?
is it because erap sells newspapers and attracts ads?
is it because eraps calling radio stations give the hosts credibility?

Has media asked itself that ignoring him will do a lot of justice to this country
has media asked itself that reporting about him is not just about making money.
It is spreading truth and helping the masses rise from the pile of ignorance and  learn about the truth

In short ALL about him is a pile of muck NOT WORTH REPORTING.

Cost Savings Of Cebu Pacific - A Security Nightmare

Once again, I have used Cebu Pacific on a return flight to Davao and on both occasions, we did not use the bridge that was designed to ferry passengers safely from the departure area to the plane and from the plane back to the airport.

But on this occasion as in many of the Cebu Pacific flights to and from Davao, plane is parked at the tarmac or at the docking bay but were not allowed to use the bridge. In so doing, passengers have to go down the tarmac and walk, yes, I repeat WALK to the airport. Here is what happened upon arrival at NAIA 3. Opening the rear door, the passengers at the rear went down the stairs, the passengers on the front row exited through the bridge at the front door but was instructed to go down the stairs of the bridge. All passengers walked  to the airport entrance for about 100 meters, went up one floor where the bridge meets the airport, walked all the way to the other end of the airport and then went down the stairs to the conveyor belt to get the checked in luggage. If one is handicapped and forgot to request for  assistance, then this is calvary. This airline may be promoting health to its passengers but this is unheard of.

 What happened to the airport tax that we pay? Is this the service we get for the P200 pesos we pay each time we use the airport. How come PAL and other airlines does not do this? What about the other taxes that are charged with the ticket?

I complained to the attendant and her reply was that this is one one gets for cheap fare. WHATTTTT? Not all passengers are paying cheap tickets, I complained because I paid a regular-priced ticket. But more seriously, such practice is a security nightmare. Getting passengers to roam around at the tarmac is inviting possible security breach to happen. What is the use of installing all those strict security procedures when one gets to roam at the tarmac? There are no security personnel there to watch, only Cebu Pacific Attendants. Why did ATO allow this?

Shall we wait for something dreadful and deadly to happen?

Doing Business at Department of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines - A reflection

Because my eldest son was born outside the Philippines during my six-year study stint in Europe, we need to get his original birth certificate from the country he was born in order to fill up his records here at the National Statistics office. The NSO referred us to the Consular Records Division of the DFA.

I took a half a day off from work on Thursday afternoon of October to work on the reconstruction of his birth certificate. I have a copy of the report of live birth I filed several months after the child was born at the Consular office of that country.

Taking the  jeep from Pasay rotunda MRT station, I alighted at the corner of FB Harison and walked towards DFA. The distance from the corner to DFA compound was probably 100 meters and walking through the distance, I was harassed by at least 10 men and women branding their large laminated IDs and offering assistance in the procurement of passport. The whole entrance to the passport processing was full of more ID weilding men and women. I could not imagine how DFA could allow such chaos around the area where our own countrymen are being gyped publicly by these jackals.

But my business is at the Consular Records Division, so I was referred to Gate 1. Upon entrance, a security guard asks what your business for entering, another one inspects your bag. I was carrying a camera because I need to do a photo session later that evening. I was informed rather brusquely by the guard named R. F. Sabala that cameras are not allowed. As I would not entrust  a very expensive camera to them, because they have no secure place to store it. They would simply issue a receipt and just put is on the table. These are very delicate and expensive instruments. I informed them that the camera are in separate pieces and could not be used. I inquired why they don't allow cameras but allow mobile phones with cameras. If cameras are banned for security purposes, then DFA must also prohibit all mobile phones with cameras. These mobile phones could take pictures discreetly in comparison with what I have which is a very bulky camera. I was wondering whether the issue with cameras has something todo with journalist rather than security. Knowing that these guards are just following orders hook line and sinker, arguing with them is a waste of time. I left my camera at the guard house and placed just  on top of the table.

 I was again halted in the main entrance of the building. I was informed that I was wearing a pair of sandals and it is DFA policy that sandals are not allowed. I could not believe what I heard because I was wearing a branded leather sandals that covered at least 50% of my feet. With the plan of going to Paranaque and Laguna later in the day where flooding occurs at a slight rain, sandals are, by call of the current times, the most appropriate footgear because I could remove it and put is back again once on dry land.

If indeed there is such a no-sandals policy, then this is such as STUPID and discriminatory because I could not imagine a poor Filipino who could not afford shoes going there to transact a business will not be allowed nor an Indigenous Filipino on a G-string being barred to transact business? Have we changed the definition of being a Filipino? I could not imagine someone from a flooded area to arrive there wearing shoes to transact business? Do we tell them to turn back and get a pair of shoes? Does this mean we are less a Filipinos for coming to DFA premises if we wear only sandals?

If the intention of that anti-sandal policy is INDECENCY, DFA should revisit the policy itself and also the definition of sandals. I think that the DFA policy refers to flip flops which have been been labelled synonymously with those sleek, and decent looking sandals use of sandals. And this is how the guards have selectively applied this to me because I had an earlier argument with them with my camera. While I was complaining about this ridiculous policy, I observed that more than 50% of the women visitors are wearing even slippers and these are allowed inside without a wink!!!!

If decency is the goal of that policy, then its definition based on what i experienced is exposure of 50% of my feet. Perhaps, DFA should look not just on my feet but to the half naked (but shapely women) roaming the corridors of DFA. Perhaps the indecency there is my non-pedicured nails which may be too much for our diplomats to look at?

But this is not the end of my story, I finally reached the office of the consular records division. There I waited not very long and finally, I transacted my business with a very nice person. I have requested for a reconstruction of the birth certificate of my son and explained the urgency of my need. I was informed that it will take 1- 2 months to accomplish this because this request will have to be officially transmitted with a cover letter and sent via the snail mail.

When i suggested that we could simply scan the file and send an email to the appropriate embassy, I was flatly informed that their office have no email facility and using electronic means is not an acceptable way of facilitating business. In our present flat world where everybody is connected by internet, that in a click of a mouse, one could send information halfway accross the world, i could not imagine DFA, the Foreign Affaris of the country, still depend on a very expensive and with a high carbon footprint way of delivering its mail services. If this is the kind of service that DFA delivers to its people, how could it serve efficiently  the over 10 million overseas Filipino workers?

Anatomy of the Metro Manila Flood Part II: What It taught Us

From Saturday evening, when flood waters rose to many low lying areas of Metro Manila, the entire city was caught unprepared. Rescue efforts started only several hours after frantic calls for help have reverberated to all media and government outlets. Only after people cling to their precious lives on rooftops.

Ondoy's teaching #I: Be prepared for any kind storm, no matter how small or how far. Be prepared as a community (rescue mission members organized and equipped and instructions on roles and responsibilities) and as a family or inidividual.

Ondoy's teaching #II Precautionary approach to disaster is better than rescue missions. Anticipate and let us not wait for disaster to happen before we act.

Ondoy's teaching #III Locally organized rescue and relief missions are better placed to handle disasters than nationally coordinated ones. This is true both for rescue and relief and mopping up operations. National coordination should simply provide necessary support and logistics to the local missions. This would prevent small areas from being left out.

SOME LESSONS LEARNED TOO
1. Evacuation Centers - i could understand the use of school buildings as immediate solutions to locate victims but when such things happen in cities like metro Manila, the best place would be the Sports Complex like Rizal Colliseum, Amang Rodrigues Sports Center. Big churches could also be used. Sports complexes could handle more people, our problem with toilet facilities would be lessened, accomodate more people and more importantly, free the schools for the students to get back to school. In short, these structures were built to handle lots of people and therefore have more facilities than schhools have.

Evacuation centers need not be the immediate areas especially where conditions are not optimal. Moreover, sports complexes have gates that entry of people could be managed, thus eliminating a lot of non-calamity victims.

2. When disaster strikes, the first thing that develop countries do is call in the national guards to prevent looting. Had the police and military been immediately deployed, it would be easier to evacuate people because they will fell safer that their properties will not be stolen.

3. Again, in disaster activities, rescue and relief would be a lot more simple if we have an easy documentation system. But this is impossible when we do not have a 1) national ID, nor a 2) well documented list of addresses. Imagine the difficulty for a rescuer (particularly those new to the area) in locating an address and where all street names are under water. The numbering of houses are chaotic in many areas, and in places where we have illegal settlers, an individual identity card would go a long way under such circumstances.

WE, as a nation responded well and our generosity, volunteerism is very much alive within our hearts as Filipinos. But we could even be much much better, save more lives, if only we have the proper plan, infrastructure to support us.

Anatomy of the Metro Manila flood: Part I- It is Expected to Happen

It came to me as a no surprise that we have deadly floods in Metro Manila. The reasons are not because we have denuded our forest (well partly yes,), nor because of climate change, nor because the storm (mind you, only a category 2) that carried lots of rainfall. It is because of two main reasons:

First, we have cemented, asphalted and built over large tracks of land that rainwater could no longer be absorbed by the land. This is the natural process and in so doing replenish our ground water. So what happens when we covered and built over raw land, we simply diverted rainwater into small canals, sewage system(is there one?), reclaimed our small creeks (just compare today's map with those in 1950's), silted our major tributaries and built on or covered our catchment areas.

This last one is one of the two main reasons why we have disaster. People complained of high water along Pateros, areas around laguna lake, areas along marikina river. But you know what, these places like Provident subdivision and others are situated in FLOOD PLAINS. These are natural catchment areas. Nature has created it so that excess water will have someplace to go before they are drained out. The area and extend of these FLOOD PLAINS have been designed by nature over tens of thousand of years. It also tells us that nature has provided these catchment areas as there will be times when more rains will come that rivers and tributaries could not handle.

But our planners, architects, engineers and politician cum businessmen thought they know more. Who let and why were housing units were allowed to be built on these flood plains bespeak of extreme ignorance on laws of nature. How many times have we heard businessmen convince our planners that they will make a wasteland profitable?

Reason #2: We, as a family or individuals are not prepared. I grew up in Quezon province where i experienced typhoon almost every year. I learned in my early years the preparations we do everytime a typhoon is expected to hit us. At least two days before typhoon arrives, we make sure we have kerosene (or used oil)and matches for our light (we have no electricity then), we have enough batteries for our radio (to keep track of typhoon) and for our flashlight, we buy sufficient rice, salt and animal lard and dry firewood to last for a week, stock up water in two clay jars. To protect our house, we put support structures both at the lee and alee side, put used fish net and lots of weight on our roofs so it will not be blown away. To protect our crops, we trim excess leaves of the bananas and put extra support for the fruit bearing ones, trim excess branches of fruit trees. All our animals (pigs, chickens, ducks) are beneath our houses and extra fodder is collected. In short, imagine the amount of work just to prepare for the worst.

During the passage of the typhoon itself, it was fun for us kids to put those tin cans, pails and basins where our roof drips. This we need to keep our sleeping quarters dry. it is also a nice time with all family members present, a time for story telling, a time for prayers. Compare this with a typical Metro Manila family. Because it is a weekend and raining, most people are glued to their television set, or glued to the computer and children playing computer games. Unmindful of the threat of the storm, they go on with their normal weekend life. Only when the power was cut off did they realize that flood was fast rising. Not knowing what to do, the rest is history.

Why You Too Should NOT Fly Cebu Pacific

When Cebu Pacific started operation using its DC9 planes, I have been their loyal customer and a gold miler at that despite the fact that their planes were older than 20 years. I simply trusted them, liked their very personal service, their on-board games, their spartan but pleasant summit lounges. I used to buy commuter pass and have been one of those that convinced a lot of people to try this company. In short, they were, at that time, far better than the national airline.

But when Cebu Pacific changed its fleet, it changed with it their way of doing business, from customer oriented service to pure profit using (rather abusing) the "value" airline concept.
Below are my reasons why:
1. Many (not sure if all)of their ticketing offices even at airports are private travel agencies, not in anyway attached to Cebu Pacific. Many of these ticketing offices charges additional service fees even at airports. Some scrupulous travel agencies add costs on offers of the cheapest rates.
2. Because of such setup, they are in no position to undertake changes in bookings (as in the case of Jakarta, Bangkok, Singapore)and one has to buy a ticket at a regular rate. SO BE CAREFUL WHEN TRAVELING TO THEIR REGIONAL DESTINATIONS. ENSURE NOT TO CHANGE YOUR SCHEDULE OR YOU WILL END UP BUYING AN EXPENSIVE REGULAR PRICED TICKET. (Tip: try other airlines, its cheaper)
3. Their baggage allowance is only 15 kg (10kg for small planes), not a bit more or you get to pay a hefty sum for excess baggage. Other airlines have 20 kg. If you are coming from abroad using other airlines, I advise you not to take this airline because all your savings will end up paying your baggages. They know how to exploit the culture of filipinos of bringing so many "pasalubongs".
4. When buying tickets on-line, never tick that no baggage because if you do, you will pay 400 pesos even if you only have a kilo to check in. I call this pure robbery. I wonder if this is legal.
5. When buying tickets on-line, the default is for you to get an insurance. Be careful to untick it. The only nice thing on line is they let you offset your carbon footprint by ticking that Panda of WWF. This should have been the default.
6. If you are plump, overweight (waistline over 36 inches), tall by filipino standard over 1.75 meter, this airline is not for you because seat distances between rows fit only small sizes comfortably. Their seatbelts are also very short. Unless of course you are willing to pay for their exit row seats which cost 200 pesos, I advise you to take up yoga or train to become a contortionist before taking the ride. CALLING ATTENTION OF ATO!! If we go by the rules of safety, the wider the rows the easier for people to get evacuated in emergencies.
7. Their marketing strategy rests on cheap ticket prices. Beware, the prices of tickets are the same for all the airlines, yet if you fly Cebu Pacific, you will have to buy your own food and water, there are no newspapers and you will freeze inside the plane because they carry no blankets. I just don't know if you need to pay for medicines for emergencies as I have not been sick.
8. Some flights of Cebu Pacific do not use the bridge because of cost saving measures. This is really one of the worst thing they do. Passengers pay for 200 pesos for airport tax but in some instances, eg in some Davao flights, the plane is parked on the tarmac where people use the stairs and walk to the arrival station, drench in rain or dried by sun, all because of savings, theirs, not yours.
9. On time 95% of the time? No longer and more likely the NOT on time 95% of the time. Airlines do not make money at the airports so the plane needs to be in the air most of the time. The consequence is that once the plane is late, it accumulates. A flight from Davao to Manila leaving at 8:30 pm finally took off at 12 midnight. They will offer food if the delay time is over four hours.
10. But their practice is not to inform the public immediately. They will inform of the delay on INSTALLMENT BASIS even if they knew before hand that the delay will be for several hours. This removes your posiblity of requesting for tranfer to another airline which they must shoulder!
11. Take note of their practice of telling people on their preflight announcement that flight duration is made longer by 10 minutes, such that upon arrival, they will boast that they arrive 10 minutes ahead of scheduled arrival. But this is announcement is done upon touchdown. How many times have we waited at the tarmac for over 10 minutes because the space where to dock is not yet free?
12. But the worst experience I have with this airline is when I was charged double on my credit card. I only realized this when I checked in where I am being charged for no-show for the same name, same flight, same date. It was only then I realized that they charged me twice.
13. It was good that they say they would rectify the problem and debit it back to may credit card. It is very bad because they did not tell me how long it would take. From the time I complained, it took them two months for their accounting to "process it" using with todays electronic technology. Today, three months later, the credit company still charges me with interest. I am still awaiting for the debit to be made.
14. I wont travel again on this airline. This is the only way to prevent number 15 to make it in this list.

I wish you revert back to your old planes and nice service.

Finding a Better Way: A Request to ADB

To the Management of ADB and MRT3,

This is an appeal to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Ortigas, Metro Manila Philippines and the MRT3 management

As a regular Metro Manila commuter using the light railway sytem, MRT3, the pedestrian access to ortigas area and malls around Ortigas Station is very narrow, particularly those going south. Along EDSA, this two-meter pedestrian lane is too small for such a huge number of pedestrians as the way is hindered by the support structures of the train station. The sidewalk becomes even smaller between ADB and the SM Megamall where the space shrinks to just a meter carved out of the roadside!

The way to ease flow of people is to request your office to provide another two meters of ADB's space, move the ADB circumferential fence to allow construction of additional pedestrian space. A cursory look at the expansion site sees no major use of the space immediately adjacent to the fence.

As the number of commutters will likely increase, please help us commuters to alleviate our great discomfort of queing and staying longer than necessary in the sidewalk that is heavily polluted. Let us also not wait for someone to be shoved into EDSA.

As the ADB premises I believe was donated by the Filipino people, perhaps it is fitting and proper to share some of it to suffering commuters.

sincerely,

fishview

Deafening Places: When Music Turns to Noise

Poets tell us that music is food of our souls. I fully agree as it soothes the spirit and connotes peace and tranquility. To appreciate music in such form, one needs a specially built music room or an earphone to experience the true purpose of music.

But somehow music, or more appropriately, NOISE appreciation has been redefined in Malls, public transport systems and other public places (including government buildings) of the Philippines. In most shopping malls, cacophony of songs from different stalls in ear-drum splitting volumes compete with the in-house music of the mall, complimented the sound generated by video games, karaoke stalls and the nerve-wracking bells from several stalls selling ice-cream and sweets. It is a jungle out there and definitely a no man's land for those with low noise tolerance.

What is surprising is that nobody notices, and nobody complains. Are we a nation of deaf people? No wonder, even our complaints are not heard by our leaders in government. They themselves have been afflicted by deafness.

There is certainly a law on noise pollution. The level of noise in these malls, jeepneys and buses and internet cafe's are way above normal tolerable levels and needs to be curbed. Each and every one of us has music preferences and that should be respected. Clearly, the playing of songs in public places are violative of individual rights to a peaceful surrounding. This is not to ban outright music, but to minimize its volume in appreciable levels.

There are few establishments that are quiet (Shangri-la to name one) because no songs are played and stalls do not also provide music. If music are played to entice costumers, it certainly will repulse me. Who will enjoy shopping when you are bothered by a loud music that is not even your choice and you need to shout to top of your voice to speak? Most retaurants, internet cafes too have blarring music. As many business transactions are done in restaurants, a peaceful and quite restaurant is hard to come by. Internet cafes are places where a lot of people work and study but could not concentrate because of too much disturbance both from music played and the rowdiness of people playing interactive games. Could we not classify internet cafes and gaming cafes separetely?

Even the MRT 3, the ads played on the speaker on a very loud volume is repeated over and over ad nauseam from end to end of the line. It plays continuously only to be interupted at every station by the driver for information.

We are a nation of deaf people, literally and figuratively. I call on our people and government to see, in case they could not hear, that noise levels in public places needs to be curbed at healthy decibels.Could the Department of Health of the Philippines do something about this? Could our politicians who are deaf by qualifications, do something?

Have'nt you noticed lately hearing aid stores mushrooming all over the city?