General Santos tuna festival obscures struggles of fishing industry workers

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines – As General Santos celebrates its annual Tuna Festival with fireworks and celebrities, the irony is that the city’s euphoria masks the suffering of many of its fisherfolk and their families. The grim realities and unfulfilled promises stand in contrast to the festive illusion of a thriving industry.

The week-long celebration of the annual Tuna Festival in General Santos, a city which was built by the fishing industry, began on Sunday, September 1. But for some residents, however, the celebrations may have to wait.

Local officials have scheduled merrymaking events until September 5 to commemorate the 56th charter foundation of the city. The former municipality of Dadiangas, which became a city in 1968, earned the title “Boom City of the South” in the 1990s.

General Santos Mayor Lorelie Pacquiao herself went to the airport on Saturday, August 31, to welcome celebrities from Manila who were invited to grace the start of the festivities on Sunday, which featured a musical fireworks display.

But for people like Jonas, a son of a fisherman who asked that his name be withheld, merrymaking can wait until he can reunite with and hug his father, who has been missing at sea for almost a year.

Jonas’ father, along with 18 others, set out to fish in the Sulu Sea, but their fishing boat FB Jason-7 capsized and sank on September 30, 2023. His father is one of two fishermen in that group still unaccounted for to this day. The rest of the crew were rescued.

“I wake up each day, anticipating, hoping for his return,” Jonas said, holding back tears and apologizing for his reluctance to share the story of his missing father on Sunday. “I still have a heavy heart.”

What happened to Jonas’ father was not an isolated incident. There have been similar cases of fishermen going missing at sea or ending up in foreign jails, such as in Indonesia, where many Filipino fishermen risk arrest for illegal entry in hopes of better catches.

Jonas, who turned 22 a week ago, hopes that someday he can contribute to improving the conditions of often marginalized fishermen and give real meaning to the celebration “instead of spending on revelries that tend to obscure the sad plight of many tuna fishermen’s families.”

He said that the fishermen’s families received no help from the government after the tragedy. Jonas added that his father’s employer provided some financial assistance.

“Walay health insurance ug wala silay benefits gyud madawat if ever matanggal sila sa trabaho, wala nay pakialam ang employer (There’s no health insurance, no benefits if they get separated from work, and the employer doesn’t care),” he said.

Jonas lives with his mother and two siblings – his elder brother, a fisherman and now the family breadwinner, and the youngest, who is still a minor.

A fisheries student at a government school in General Santos, Jonas lamented that small-time fishermen like his father, who labor and risk their lives at sea, continue to be shortchanged and sidelined in an industry that officials boast is the city’s economic driver.

He pointed out that the irony is that tuna fisherfolk receive only a small fraction of the proceeds from their catch – much of which is exported and sold at high prices – and “many of them have never even tasted sashimi.”

“I really want to become proficient in the field I have entered and also to help marginalized fisherfolk be heard and to ensure that the issues affecting the fisheries sector receive attention,” he said.

The same sentiment was expressed by 52-year-old Jun Seno, who recalled his days as a handline tuna fisherman more than a decade ago. He shared his experience while carefully hand-stitching the soles of a pair of leather shoes.

The tuna hand-liner turned neighborhood handyman returned to his old craft – shoe repair, which he learned when he was 14. An abdominal ailment forced Seno to abandon tuna fishing in 2009.

“Naoperahan man gud ko sa appendix ug gikan ato, wala na koy kusog mamariles, hurot pud akong tinigom (I underwent surgery, and since then, I lost the strength to fish and my savings as well),” he said on Friday, August 30.

“How can you pull onboard a 60-kilogram tuna if you lack the strength?” he pointed out. To fetch a good price, tuna must be of the best quality, which requires careful handling of the fish, Seno explained.

One needs to be healthy when setting out to fish tuna because it’s each person for themselves out there, he said. He noted that they would normally stay at sea for a couple of weeks or even three months.

With the dwindling catch in traditional fishing grounds in the country, many handline fishers venture into Indonesian waters and even to Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Palau, and as far as Australia, risking possible arrest by authorities in those places.

Describing his former work as “more difficult than enjoyable,” Seno said he was fortunate to have remained unmarried so that no family would suffer because of what happened to him.

“It is a one-day millionaire life,” he described the life he had when he and his colleagues went to the open sea, fishing and earning money, usually just enough for a drinking spree. When the money ran out, they would go back to fish again.

Seno said they receive a fifth of the proceeds from their individual handline catch, usually averaging P5,000 to P8,000.

The financier of the fishing trip, usually the boat owner, gets the larger share, as “they pay for our food provisions, fuel, and other expenses, including cash advances that fishermen leave for their families,” he said.

Fishing authorities estimate that there are more than 70,000 handline fishermen in the city and about 3,500 fishing boats, which are owned by individuals and fishing companies that also have larger purse-seine vessels, known locally as onay.

Records from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) show that in 2022, tuna accounted for 10.25% of the country’s fisheries production.

With more than 475,000 metric tons of tuna landed in 2022, BFAR officials said the Philippines became one of the world’s leading tuna producers.

The country exported more than 107,000 metric tons of tuna in the same year, said Agriculture Undersecretary for fisheries Drusila Bayate in her message at the closing of the 23rd National Tuna Congress in General Santos in 2023.

“Nakaka-proud talagang maging Filipino (It makes us proud to be Filipino),” she said. – Rappler.com