Asia Observer - Fishing with dead young boys

By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN

Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines (May 23, 2001) --- Forty years ago, saltwater-scalded fisherman Lakay Ulam Asmi, 71, says fish was so plenty in this resource-rich province that one can fish just a stone's throw away from its shores. The only thing needed was a net and a good fish sense.

Today, fishermen sail far and often stay long in the sea to be able to
bring home anything. And the net is sometimes more than what they need. Dynamites, molotov cocktails and cyanide are oftenly used.

But others use something else. They use young enslaved boys who are usually brought home dead along with their with their catch like
Jingo,14, Asmi's grandson, a victim of muro ami and who now lies
lifeless under the eyes of few relatives holding vigil here.

It is no secret that the illegal fishing practice muro ami is widely
practiced here and in many parts of the country. The practice requires children to dive to often dangerous depths to pound the easily broken corals with rocks or pipes to scare fish into a large waiting net.

Young divers often drown and the coral reefs become devastated.
A similar fishing process which is as destructive and as dangerous is
called the paaling where young divers are required to use hoses attached to a surface air compressor to form a virtual bubble curtain which forces fish out into the nets. Typically, a paaling operation uses 4 boats, each carrying 25 divers.

Muro ami was banned in 1986 after a national outcry when bodies of 100 Muro-ami victims, mostly children who were unable to escape from the nets after diving, were found in a graveyard along the shores of Panlaitan Island in Busuanga of this province.

There is more than just child labor in the practice of muro ami and
paaling. Asmi says his dead grandson often told of physical abuse under the hands of their employers and guards.

The Palawan-based Environmental Legal Assistance Center (ELAC) has documented statements made by 129 children who escaped from a fishing vessel using muro ami and paaling methods in July here last year.

"The way we fished was muro ami but we pretended to use paaling. In fishing we used a seven kilo weight of lead tied to a hose and with this we hit the corals. The hose is connected to a compressor. The compressor is used only when the coastguard are monitoring us but when they are out, we shift to muro ami", Samuel, a 15 year old diver said.

June, 17, narrated "We had to work from 6 am in the morning until 5 pm in the evening. Sometimes when we made mistakes, our supervisor whipped us with a rope almost the size of a wrist. On one occasion I was whipped because I misplaced the hose. Due to the maltreatment we suffered we decided to escape. While we can endure the diving we cannot withstand the lashing and physical brutality"

Eddie ,14 used to help his father farm but ran away wanting to earn money. " On July 3rd 1998 I started my work as a diver on the FB Unity. The boat has 350 divers with 4 managers. We had a ten month contract of work with the company. The company said we would be paid at the end of the contract. Our food was deducted from our salary. We were treated like animals and when we committed mistakes were whipped and beaten. Workers were compelled to work despite illness. We made 7 dives a day and could catch fifty to seventy tubs of fish in every dive"

ELAC's document is long. It talks of miserable life, suffering and death in the sea often unknown by authorities. The fishing practices in the country have not only become desperate but dangerous.
Although the Philippines, ranked 12th in the world in marine fish
production, has 1,700 islands that yield almost two million square
kilometers (770,00 sq.mi) of fishing ground, fish supply is fast dwindling. Also only 4.3 per cent or 1,161 sq km of its once-sprawling 27,000 sq km of coral reefs are in good condition.

Big game fish such as the blue marlin and the giant tuna, as well as the smaller but very aggressive grouper, are fast disappearing. In 1999, the fishing industry earned only some 2,731 billion dollars for the government.

This has led to ecologically-destructive fishing methods which now also threaten the life of huge number of young poor Filipinos who belong to the growing list of exploited children.

As child labor grows to be one of the worst problems in the Philippines, the government has not shown a stronger commitment to meet the challenge. There are about 2.06 million children all around the Philippines compelled to do labor in crop plantations, mining caves, rock quarries, factories and recently, in fishing vessels, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said..

Even as a government policy provides for the rights of children in the Philippine society under Republic Act 7658, illegal employment with maltreatment, abuse and exploitation is rampant in the country.

The muro ami and paaling fishing practices are seen as a growing and serious form of child exploitation today, especially in the Visayas part of the Philippines because hundreds are lured to escape poverty.

"We are doing our best to help the children and preserve marine resources", Atty. Mayo Anda, Executive Director of ELAC said. "We are appealing to the Senate, Congress and Department of Agriculture and Fisheries that the paaling be banned too and that stricter monitoring done by the coast guard on muro ami fishers." he said.

But that may be far in coming as politicians are now busy campaigning for the national elections on May 14 even as most are tainted by graft and corruption charges.

As they do, the body count rises for young boys killed in the sea in an attempt to eke out an honest living.