The Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) said personnel of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) threatened to seize the fishermen’s boats if they joined the fluvial protest which was also timed for World Fisheries Day.
While on their way to the assembly point in Baywalk Manila, fishing boats from Navotas and Cavite were blocked and surrounded by vessels of the PCG, asserting that protests are not allowed in the area and that they are still under the “ASEAN mode,” referring to the heightened security alert status during the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit which has already ended one week ago,” Pamalakaya chair Fernando Hicap said in a statement.
He, however, noted that more than 20 fishing boats were still able to join the protest against 42 approved reclamation projects in Manila Bay covering 29, 929 hectares of waters under the National Reclamation Plan (NRP) of the Duterte administration.
The group said the fishermen “were only practicing their constitutional freedom of assembly carrying their legitimate calls for right to livelihood.”
Pamalakaya has insisted that the reclamation project would deprive tens of thousands of small fisherfolk of rich fishing areas.
“Instead of mobilizing their troops in the West Philippine Sea to defend our contested exclusive economic zones, the PCG is out there in Manila Bay harassing Filipino fishermen like what the Chinese personnel has been doing to us in Scarborough Shoal,” Hicap said.
“The PCG can only pick on small fisherfolk, but they are afraid to fl ex their muscles toward the giant bullies and foreign aggressors like China,” he added.
