Fishers planning summit protest alarmed by security measures
Fishers planning summit protest alarmed by security measures
By Blanche Rivera
Inquirer
12/06/2006
FISHERMEN organizing a huge fluvial protest on Wednesday raised an alarm over the intensified military presence in coastal communities in Cebu ahead of the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in the province next week.
The Kilusang Mangingisda (Fisherfolk Movement-Philippines), a national coalition of five fisher folk federations and 13 regional groups, said it has received reports that the military and the police would do house-to-house checks in Mambaling, Cebu City and Talisay to discourage residents from joining the planned fluvial protest of artisanal fishers.
KM chair Noli Dela Cruz said village leaders sympathetic to the group informed the organizers that they were being approached and questioned by military agents who have been making the rounds of coastal communities.
More than 500 soldiers from the Marines’ 7th Marine Battalion Team from Jolo have been deployed to Cebu to beef up the 4,500-member peacekeeping force on Mactan Island, as well as in the seaports and sea lanes in Lapulapu, Mandaue and Cebu cities.
The Marines are based at the Naval Forces Central (Navforcen) in the village of Looc, Lapulapu City. There were also reports that armed military personnel were seen in Pamasol, Consolacion and Olango Island.
“Local officials of Cebu are overreacting when they say that they will prevent any forms of protest whether by land or by sea. All our activities will be peaceful and within our rights,” Dela Cruz said in a statement.
It was reported that Mandaue Mayor Thadeo Ouano has declared a 1,000-meter exclusive zone off Mactan Island which would be off-limits to fishers going about their daily routine or protesters eyeing the ASEAN summit.
“There is nothing that we will do any differently from the past. As far as we’re concerned, their ’OA’ (overacting) security policy will be put to the test because naturally, we will assert our right to peaceful protest," he said.
KM, which also held fluvial protests during the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong last year and in Lake Geneva, Switzerland in July, is set to deploy 100 local fishing boats in Mactan’s waters on December 11 to call attention the sorry plight of an estimated 20 million fishers in Southeast Asia.
Local fisher folk groups are opposing the ASEAN’s Roadmap to Fisheries Integration, saying the facilitation of free trade of fisheries products without consideration for the biological limits to fisheries productivity would lead to overfishing and adversely affect artisanal fishers who could not compete with commercial fishing fleets.
