MASINLOC, ZAMBALES — There was once a time when bursts of color filled Oyon Bay at sunset. As tinges of pink and purple swept the sky, a string of fishing boats would appear in the distance, their sails of quilted multicolored rags billowing in the wind. One by one, these boats would drift past the big, orange sun sliding slowly down the horizon.

	A Chinese national oversees a sprawling fish cage in Oyon Bay.

By nightfall, the boats, groaning under the weight of crabs and an assortment of fish, would reach the shore, where residents and guests of resorts by the bay would be waiting eagerly.

These scenes are now painted only in memory. Ten years ago, Masinloc residents were jolted by the news that a coal-fired power plant was to be built on the edge of Oyon Bay. Today smoke gray and coal black are the colors that tarnish the landscape, which now includes the power plant and its mammoth steel structures that resemble giant robots standing guard over its jetty.

But just as Masinloc residents woke up one day to the sight of a coal plant rising in their midst, they were alarmed to find, one morning last year, Oyon Bay strewn with fish cages that had literally sprung up overnight.

On the surface, the fish cages look like steel enclosures floating on water. But plastic barrels buoy these metal frames, which hold together the huge fishing nets underneath, where milkfish are grown. At least nine operators have been granted leases for fish cages here, the biggest among them covering three hectares, the smallest, 1,200 square meters.

This number excludes those in nearby Sitio Panglit, where a firm called FoodPro Asia operates fish cages over an expanse of water 30 hectares wide. FoodPro Asia's stockholders include Roberto de Venecia, younger brother of the Speaker of the House.

The bays of Oyon and Masinloc are among the five that form part of the 100-kilometer Zambales coastline, one of the main fishing grounds of Central Luzon. The two other three bays are Palauig, Sta. Cruz on the edge of Zambales near Pangasinan, and Subic, the Philippines' finest harbor that was once home to the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet.

"These bays," says the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute, "have extensive reef covers rich in finfishes and aquatic invertebrates." Fish found in the four bays include tuna, marlin, Spanish mackerel, and dolphin fishes.

But these are species that, like the rainbow-sailed bancas at sunset, now inhabit only the memory of the fishers in Oyon and Masinloc Bays. The reefs have given way to a channel that allows the entry of coal-laden ships, while the waters have become dumping areas for the plant's wastes. Add to these the fish-cage operators who have practically taken over the bays and crowded out the competition.

Virgilio Lingad, who starts casting his net at 4:30 a.m., is able to get only a handful of small flat sapsap three hours later, not even enough to make one kilo. Nestor Alvez, another local fisher, explains, "The bay's full, there's no place left for us. Even if you dive, you won't be able to see the bottom of the bay."

Oyon Bay is too shallow, and its tide too sluggish, for fish cages. During one provincial board session, Zambales Vice Governor Ramon Lacbain had declared that fish cages should be set up in waters where the current runs deep and continuously, so the water is replenished. "You cannot have them in enclosed waters because they will cause pollution," warned Lacbain.

Those living along Oyon's shores say this is exactly what is happening at the bay, where there have already been two fish kills since September. Fingers point to the fish-cage operators who, in their haste to harvest, try to stuff the bangus fingerlings with fish feed that many here suspect to be spoiled fish ground to a pulp, chicken manure or stale bread crumbs. Residents fear that toxic algae are now choking Oyon Bay.

"Only 70 percent of the feeds are consumed, the rest are left to rot at the bottom of the bay, poisoning the waters," says one Masinloc resident. Workers at a nearby fish cage, however, deny using such feed.

Masinloc's fisherfolk have found allies in the resort owners, among them Juli Sowade, who runs Stingray Divers Resort. The resorts make brisk business hosting foreigners attracted to the relative quiet of Masinloc, a five-hour drive from bustling Metro Manila.

Stingray ferries tourists to nearby San Salvador island, a marine sanctuary that is a divers' haven, and to other small islands facing this part of the South China Sea. It is bad enough that the coal plant, just across the mouth of the bay from San Salvador, is an eyesore and a pollutant, laments Sowade. Now there are the fish cages as well, and she fears the tourists will stop coming.

Neither the fish cages nor the coal plant would be here if only the law were upheld, and if the government itself were the first to heed it. On August 18, 1993, then President Fidel Ramos signed an order declaring Oyon Bay a marine reserve and protected area. That same year, the government-owned National Power Corporation began building the coal plant.

In 1997, Masinloc passed an ordinance allowing the construction of fish cages for commercial fishing, even setting the cage sizes and the fees to be paid. It also permitted cooperatives, corporations, partnerships, or associations to engage in large-scale commercial fishing. Shortly afterwards, the local government issued two permits for fish-cage operations on Oyon Bay.

Even then, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) ruled that the municipal government had no jurisdiction over the Oyon Bay reserve. The DENR said the Local Government Code, which defines municipal waters as "streams, lakes, inland bodies of water, and tidal waters within the municipality which are not included within the protected areas," is quite explicit about this.

Instead, said the DENR, it was its local office and the Protected Areas Management Bureau that have "full management and authority and administrative jurisdiction over the waters and resources of (the) said marine reserve."

Yet even the inclusion of Masinloc and Oyon Bays among the pilot areas of the DENR's Coastal Environment Program failed to protect these bodies of water from a deluge of fish cages.

In 2001, the Masinloc Sangguniang Bayan (SB) granted another permit for fish-cage operations. Last year, the SB approved six more permits, all in a span of eight days. On one particular day, four permits were approved. When the federation of local fisherfolk demanded late last year to see the environmental compliance certificates of these fish-cage operators, the local government could not produce any.

Recently, Zambales Rep. Ruben Torres proposed to have a mariculture park in Masinloc. Fish cages are supposed to be restricted to the park, thereby preventing more damage on Oyon Bay. The space would be distributed equitably among the fisherfolk and fish-cage owners. A 100-hectare area was set aside; 127 hectares has been farmed out, mostly to fish-cage owners.

Masinloc residents say most of the fish-cage owners are either Taiwanese or mainland Chinese. In November, we took a boat trip around the fish cages and chanced upon a young Chinese man in a makeshift floating hut on one of the fish cages. The man, barely in his 20s, spoke no English and only a few words of Filipino, but was identified by fish-cage workers as the overseer of their operations. He could present no ID, and said he left his passport in Manila.

What attracts the mainland Chinese or Taiwanese to the fish-cage business is anybody's guess. What locals do know, and what newspapers have reported, is that in late 2001, four Chinese nationals were arrested in a nearby town for possessing some 300 kilos of shabu (methamphetamine) worth over P600 million. Anti-drug agencies later said the shabu entered Zambales through Masinloc.

Another thing locals are sure of is that these fish-cage operators came from Bolinao, Pangasinan, where in February 2002 residents drove them away for causing massive fish kills that polluted the waters there. Henry Mania, who heads a local fishers' cooperative, says Masinloc is the next Bolinao, adding that this could happen within a year. "They should bring back hook-and-line and net-fishing here, so Oyon Bay would in better shape," he says.

Last October 23, residents of Masinloc and Palauig, also in Zambales, held what they called a "fish-tival" — protest actions aimed at getting authorities to dismantle the fish cages. The very same day, the Masinloc SB declared a moratorium on the grant of permits to fish-cage operators. But the SB also declared Mania persona non grata for leading the protests and shouting "slanderous statements against the Sangguniang Bayan and the Chief Executive of this Municipality." Mania, the community's representative in the local council of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, has been barred from entering the local BFAR office.

When last heard, the DENR office in Manila was still questioning the local governments of Masinloc and Palauig over the fish cages at Oyon and Masinloc Bays.

Protests against the coal-fired power plant have been more successful. In January, they forced it to shut down for at least a few days. — Luz Rimban

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