CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

"Bugabug ang Dagat": The Local Life of a Fishing Community in the Philippines

Nelson, T.() This thesis looks at everyday life in a fishing community in the

context of dwindling fish stocks and concomitant economic difficulties for families relying on

fishing and its associated trades (collectively referred to in the study as a fisheries crisis). It

focuses on the continuing power of the local in relation to global developments and how the local

as a mode of living manifests in the community’s power, gender and economic relations. It takes

into consideration “how ordinary social actors perceive and experience globalization from

‘below’ rather than relying solely or mainly on academic theorizing which tends to overstate the

impact of globalization on most people’s lives” (Kennedy 2010, p. 7). The people mentioned in

this study are by all means economically marginalized and the community studied is primarily a

small-scale fishing community (see chapter 4). Small-scale fishing refers to using small craft and

simple gear (though not necessarily simple techniques) of relatively low capital intensity. Fishing

operations are skillintensive and fishers fish close to the community in relatively near-shore

waters in single day/night operations. Most of their boats are non -mechanized, and if some use

on-board motors, they are few and their lives are as hard as other members of the community.

Furthermore, being a small-scale fishing community, it is also, compared with other sections of

society, relatively socially and economically disadvantaged with low employment mobility out

of fishing (Kurien 1998, p. 4). The community is one of the numerous fishing communities

dotting the coastline of Lamon Bay and has a population of 1,225 individuals. People in the

community, at the time of fieldwork, were just getting by; many men who used to be fishers had
turned to selling fish to support the household while women, on the other hand, juggled work and

home. The fisheries crisis, as what this study suggests, has changed the life of the people in the

community in varying ways.

While this community is poor and marginal, it is not isolated though. The fishing

community which is the subject of this study is very much a part of the world. While people in

the community have been affected and are continuously being affected by

extra-local developments, the everyday moments of living described here are largely executed

on their own terms. Invoking Beynon in a different time, context and place, I claim that the

portrait of the people of this study is painted in their own words and the dynamism of the story

is taken from their actions. For I have been concerned not to write about these men as if they

were the mechanical products of economic and technological forces. I have attempted to show

how such forces limit and constraint people’s lives, yet how in the very constraint they reveal

the seeds of an alternative. (Beynon 1973, p. 14)

In the succeeding sections of this chapter, I explain the context of the fisheries

crisis in the community in relation to existing data about the state of fisheries resource in the

Philippines. However, this will not take up a big chunk of my discussion, since my aim is only to

provide the requisite context from within which the fisheries crisis in the community can be

understood. I also explain briefly this study’s take on globalization and concomitantly, why the

‘local’ and ‘margins’ are important concepts in the study. The local as deployed in this study is

taken to mean “our physical/bodily but also social emplacement in the locality we inhabit at any

one time and the latter’s particularities, and the experience of everyday life through a round of

multiple, repeated and sometimes trivial practices involving family, work leisure and much else
besides – some undertaken reflexively and others without much thought […]” (Kennedy 2010, p.

7). Margins or marginality on the other hand incorporates a geographical dimension , though, as

the study will show, it also implies immobility and lack of opportunities for people in the

community studied (I take this up further in chapter 3). The fieldwork on which this thesis is

based was carried out in a fishing community in Lamon Bay in the Philippines between July

2008 and January 2009. Prior to that, in March 2008, I visited the community for a one-month

pre-fieldwork refamiliarization stay. While the data used for this study are a product of my six-

month intensive fieldwork, my engagement with the fishing community goes a long way back. I

grew up in a place not far from the fishing community, and with a fisherman for a father, my

intimacy with, and knowledge of, the community and its people hence provided a robust

grounding and context for my ‘formal fieldwork’. For six months, I observed the unfolding of

the community’s everyday life, conversed with local inhabitants and joined some of their

activities, like selling fish on the street, looking after ‘sari-sari’ stores1 in the absence of their

owners, attending special occasions like birthdays and wedding

parties, and on some occasions, lending money to hard-up informants.2 I am a Filipino by

nationality and, as a native of the place, my fieldwork is a homecoming on my part. Thus, my

fieldwork could also be called ‘homework’ (Giron 2009; Kenny 2000) or fieldwork done by

ethnographers in their own localities. This is an ethnographic study not of fishing but of a fishing

community. I highlight this aspect of my study to signify the means by which it is thematically

structured. But while fishing is not directly addressed through a chapter solely devoted to it, both

as a way of life and as a means of economic production, its presence looms loud and clear. It

must be clear, then, as it will be in the remaining chapters, that what I am aiming to describe, and

what this thesis is all about, is the life on shore of people in the community. The fisheries crisis
in Lamon Bay has had a great impact on the everyday life of the community. Lamon Bay, one of

the top ten major fishing grounds in the Philippines, is over-exploited. While it ranked as the

fifth highest commercial fishing ground in the Philippines in 1995, with a total production of 55,

252 metric tons (mt) comprising 6% ofthe total national harvest, a study by Campos, Pantoja,

Manalili and Bravo (2003) revealed that since 1985 its fish catch has been declining at a rate of

13.5% per annum, which is more than twice the national average of 5.4% (see also Alino

undated). People in the community, on the other hand, date the fisheries crisis to the late 1990s,

when according to them commercial fishers started to ‘lord it’ over Lamon Bay. The sad state of

Lamon Bay mirrors in many ways the state of Philippine fisheries (Alino undated; Javier 2003;

Pomeroy and Pido 1995; Pomeroy and Williams 1994). Vincent, Meeuwig, Pajaro and Perante

(2007) date the decline in Philippine fisheries from the beginning of the 1970s (see also Smith

1979).3 A study conducted by the Philippine Environmental Governance 2 Project (EcoGov2) in

2007 stated that the annual rent dissipation from overfishing in the Philippines was estimated at

around US $130 million for demersal fisheries and around US $290 million for small pelagics.

Reasons abound for Philippine fishing grounds becoming unproductive. Corruption is rampant in

national and local agencies tasked to manage Philippine maritime resources, as mentioned by

Eder (2005) in his study of a fishing community in the southern Philippines. National laws

protecting fishing grounds are poorly implemented (Guieb 2009). The mesh sizes of nets are

often smaller than the mesh sizes allowed by national regulation. There is a high level of bycatch

and incidental catch of small-size/juvenile fish. Harmful fishing gear such as push nets, stow

nets, and fixed nets are still commonly used in some places. Destructive fishing techniques, such

as explosives, electricity and poison have not been phased out (Eder 2005; Salayo, Garces, Pido,

Viswanathan, Pomeroy, Ahmed, Siason, Send and Masae 2008; Sumalde and Pedroso 2001).
However, the most prevalent fisheries’ concern is the condition that is referred to as ‘Malthusian

overfishing’. This condition is often related to an increasing density of the fishers’ population4

and leads to the use of more efficient but destructive fishing practices, such as blast fishing

(Alino undated). The fisheries crisis nonetheless is a symptom of a bigger transformation taking

place beyond the community. While the fisheries crisis could be the most tangible and oft-cited

reason why life has changed and is changing in the community, globalization and attendant

socio-economic processes taking place beyond its boundaries are the unpronounced albeit

powerful forces that instantiate the changes in the everyday life of the community. The study

then suggests that the fisheries crisis in Lamon Bay, and its impact upon the community and its

people, could be read as an instance of globalization – it is the way in which the fishing

community is impacted by global developments.