The House of Representatives recently approved on third and final reading a landmark legislation that seeks to provide permanent resettlement sites to tens of thousands of Filipino fisherfolk and their families.
House Bill 6876, entitled, “An Act Mandating the Establishment of Fisherfolk Resettlement Areas by the Department of Agriculture, Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development, and the Local Government Units, Amending for the Purpose Section 108 of Republic Act No. 8550, Otherwise Known as the “Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998,” as Amended by Republic Act No. 10654,” hopes to alleviate the lives of thousands of fishermen in the country, Rep. Leo Rafael Cueva (Neg. Occ., 2nd District), said.
Cueva, chairman of the House Committee on Aquaculture and Fisheries Resources, defended the legislation, originally authored by Rep. John Reynald Tiangco of Navotas, in the plenary.
“This is a landmark piece of legislation that is seen to bail out fisherfolk throughout the country from their present living conditions, especially with the pandemic still on our midst,” Cueva said.
With its approval, House Bill 6876 goes to the Senate for deliberations and eventual adoption and passage. It will then be finalized and reconciled at the bicameral committee for concurrence before it is signed into law by the President.
The law enjoins the DHSUD, the DA and the LGUs to jointly implement the permanent on-site housing development so that the fishing families will not be uprooted from their place of livelihood, Cueva explained.
Tiangco, in the explanatory note of his bill, underscored that he pushed for the bill’s passage because 20 years since the signing of the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998, “there has been very little progress, if any, towards the establishment of settlement areas for fisherfolk”.
“As a result, fisherfolk continue to be a very vulnerable sector, continually displaced not only by natural calamities, but also by industrial and tourism-related development,” Tiangco said.
This measure, Cueva said during the plenary, aims to strengthen the mandate, and facilitate the establishment of settlement areas for fisherfolk by including the local government units of coastal areas, and the newly-created Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development as co-implementing agencies of the Department of Agriculture.*ETL