ARMM has more than 200,000 fisherfolks

COTABATO CITY- The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in theAutonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BFAR-ARMM) today said the region now has more than 200,000 registered fisher folks following the implementation ofthe Fisherfolk Registration (FishR) program of the national
government.

In a statement released by the ARMM Bureau of Public Information (BPI-ARMM),Janice Musali,
ARMM’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) director, said ARMM now ranked 5th among the regions in the country with the most number of fishermen and fisher women.Without giving the exact number of registered fisher folks,Musali said
the data can help the region come up with better policies and
improve its programs on fisheries.

Republic Act
8850 or the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 mandates the registration of
municipal fisherfolk for the purpose of managing the municipal waters and monitoring
fishing activities and other related matters.

Registered
fisherfolk will receive an insurance coverage for fishing boats and aquaculture
stocks in the event of calamities through the Philippine Crop Insurance
Corporation (PCIC) and health coverage by the Philippine Health Insurance
Corporation (Philhealth).

When the
program was first introduced in 1998, only 50,000 fisherfolk were registered
due to its poor implementation.
Following an in-depth review and a nationwide preparation, the FishR program
was re-launched in the second quarter of 2013.

Musali said
BFAR now has registered over a million fisherfolk nationwide.

She said FishR
will help the working government of ARMM approximate the number of residents
and families in the region that rely on fisheries as source of livelihood.

The registry
is being cross-checked by the National Household Targeting System-Poverty
Reduction program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)
and the Registry System for Basic Sector in Agriculture of the Department of
Budget and Management.