Julie Alipala, Nestor P. Burgos Jr., Mindanao Bureau, Visayas Bureau
Inquirer

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Some 50,000 workers were thrown out of jobs as 14 companies in Western Mindanao engaged in fishing and canning either closed shop or downsized their operations because of high fuel costs.

Eugene Yap, vice president and spokesman of the Southern Phils Deep Sea Fishing [Sophil], said 14 of Sophil’s member companies either stopped production or reduced their labor force.

Yap said fuel costs eat up about 70 percent of the companies’ operations expenses.

“Majority of the members of Sophil have started to halt (their) operations due to mounting operational losses,” Yap said in a phone interview.

“Some members, if not all, have halted their fishing operations since July 26.”

The fishery sector, according to Yap, is fuel and labor intensive. Sophil maintains more than 300 fishing vessels, each having a capacity of 60 tons of sardines.

“We are feeling the heavy strain since fuel prices have doubled in the last few months,” Yap said.

“This includes other factors such as increasing labor cost, taxes on imported fishing equipment and monetary inflation while selling of prices of fish have remained stagnant,” he said.

Sardinella, or sardines, cost P22 per kilogram in the past months. Fuel price increases pushed sardine prices up to P25 per kg, prompting canneries to stop buying.

Sophil’s member companies produce canned sardines like Family, Mega, Ligo, 555-Century, Paradiso, Mico, Youngstown and Kingstown. Canned sardines cost P10 to P10.50 each.

“If we go on operating without intervention from the government, it’s either we increase the price of sardines or decide to shut down our operation. That would mean importing sardines from other countries,” Yap said.

The YL Fishing Company, Yap said, has 36 fishing vessels, with each vessel consuming about 15,000 liters of fuel a day.

“Before, we enjoyed P45 per liter of diesel, now it’s P59.25 per liter. High fuel cost really kills the industry,” Yap said.

One of the biggest fishing boat owners in Iloilo City grounded his vessels in protest of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s decision to stick to E-VAT.

Arnaldo Borres Jr., owner of the Jumbo Fishing Corp., said he kept at least 30 of his boats at port in protest of E-VAT.
“It’s our way of showing what we feel because our appeals have fallen on deaf ears,” Borres said.

“She [Ms Arroyo] tells us that government will continue to collect VAT so she can spend for the poor. But the ones they are taxing are getting impoverished. It’s like milking the cow to the death,” he said.

Borres said he decided to suspend operations because he keeps incurring millions of pesos in losses.

He said his vessels use at least 300,000 liters of fuel per month.

“We pay P1.8 million per month for VAT alone for the fuel we use. It’s too much for us,” Borres said.