26/10/2025
Small-Scale fishers are too big to ignore!
After the success of the Second Philippines Small-Scale Fisheries National Symposium 2025 (October 21-23, 2025, Mindanao State University, Marawi City), this opinion piece from former CHED chairperson Popoy de Vera, calling higher education institutions to advance small-scale fisheries is on point.
"TBTI Philippines serves as the National Consortium for Small-Scale Fisheries Research and Development, bringing together higher education institutions (HEIs) that aim to make small-scale fisheries visible, viable and sustainable.
TBTI Philippines released a book entitled โPortrait of Small-Scale Fishers in the Philippines,โ putting together 78 stories that describe the everyday lives of fishers โ their contributions, struggles and hopes.
The stories reveal the challenges facing small-scale fishers: low income, limited investment and lack of assistance during the closed fishing season. They also struggle against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing that takes away their rightful catch and threatens their source of living.
Small-scale fishers need our protection and support. Safeguarding the municipal waters, which serve as their main fishing ground, means protecting the fish, the fishers and the millions of Filipinos who rely on them for food and livelihood.
We need to support and protect them because to secure our food, we must first secure our small-scale fishers.
The academe, led by the University of the Philippines, SUCs with strong fisheries programs and the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Fisheries, can make a big difference.
Investing in small-scale fishers means investing in the countryโs food security. When fishers thrive, the whole nation benefits. There is no greater honor than ensuring the well-being of those who feed us."
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2025/10/25/2482268/small-scale-fishers-are-too-big-ignore?fbclid=IwY2xjawNqk5lleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHrNhtyqAt_dDYVlU604j98nBXekorFdFXOa7caAMZBZp08M3ImVtVHSu9dja_aem_6tTVqO7k7yQ3gKd0nTcM6A
In 2023, I met and spoke before Too Big To Ignore (TBTI) Philippines, a research and knowledge-sharing network composed of 24 higher education institutions, during their first national symposium on small-scale fisheries held at UP Visayas.