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SORSOGON CITY: Areas suffering from red tide around the Sorsogon Bay
have been declared under state of calamity.
The declaration gave authority to
the four local governments (LGUs) including this city to use their
calamity funds to assist fisherfolks who lost their means of
livelihood to the toxic effects of the red tide phenomenon.
It was enacted through a
resolution passed by the provincial legislative board Monday amidst
the unrest demonstrated by thousands of fishermen and tahong
(mussel) farmers over the devastating effects of the red tide
contamination that failed to draw enough attention from LGUs
affected.
The phenomenon was first detected
after the onslaught of Typhoon Milenyo over four months ago when
hospitalization and deaths due to food poisoning from shellfishes
and other local seafoods were reported here and the nearby coastal
municipalities of Casiguran, Magallanes and Juban.
Nine persons died while over a
hundred were hospitalized and most of the victims came from coastal
villages if this city and Casiguran, according to the records of the
Provincial Health Office (PHO) as of early this month.
As these developed, the
provincial government on recommendation of the Bureau of Fisheries
and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) imposed a ban on the collecting,
transporting, selling and eating shellfishes, particularly tahong
from the Sorsogon Bay.
The ban, intended to prevent more
casualties denied thousands of fisherfolks of their source of income
with the LGUs concerned offering no alternative or assistance.
Dismayed, dozens of fishermen
last week converged with their families at the seaport here and
dramatized their plight over local government inaction that
aggravated their economic displacement by way of eating cooked
tahong before the public.
They also protested the prolonged
ban even as according to tahong farmer Renerio del Rosario of
barangay Bitano here assured the shellfish was already safe for
human consumption.
They threatened to repeat the
eating demonstration before provincial officials Monday but the
Provincial Agricultural Office (PAO) warned them that defying the
ban carries criminal liabilities.
PAO chief David Gillego said the
ban would remain unless the BFAR comes out with findings that the
toxicity of Sorsogon Bay caused by red tide organisms is down to
tolerable level.
Heeding the warning, the eating
demonstration was called off yet, they trooped to the provincial
capitol compound and pressed for government assistance.
Provincial board member Arze
Glipo, chairperson of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan’s committee on
agriculture, said that placing areas affected by the red tide
phenomenon under state of calamity would facilitate releases of
funds intended for calamities by the LGUs.
With this, certain mitigating
measures like relief operations and opening of alternative sources
of income for the affected families could be implemented, Glipo
said.
--PNA
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