CONSTITUTIONAL framer Christian Monsod and Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David yesterday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to review the decision of a Malabon trial court allowing commercial fishing in municipal waters in disregard of the 15-kilometer limit set under the Fisheries Code.
The petition for certiorari filed by Monsod and David included environmental lawyer Grizelda Mayo-Anda as co-petitioner.
Named as respondents in the case are Malabon Regional Trial Court Branch 170 Judge Zaldy Docena, Mercidar Fishing Corporation, the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, and the Office of the Solicitor General.
The petitioners said Docena’s December 11,2023 ruling that favored the petition filed by Mercidar Fishing Corporation and allowed it to operate in any municipal water unhampered by the Fisheries Code’s 15-kilometer limit was a grave abuse of discretion and should be struck down.
The questioned ruling declared as “unconstitutional and without any legal and binding force and effect” Section 4 (66), Section 16, Section 17 and Section 18, Rule 18.1 of Department of Agriculture Administrative Order No. 10, s. 2015 as well as Section 4 (58), Section 16, and Section 18 of [Republic Act No.] 8550, as amended….”
The Malabon court likewise enjoined concerned government agencies concerned from “enforcing the provisions of the law, with emphasis on the 15-kilometer limit on municipal waters insofar as the petitioner MFC (Mercidar) in the instant case is concerned.”
It likewise ruled that “in line with the declaratory relief sought in the instant Petition, in coordination with the pertinent government agencies, the petitioner MFC (Mercidar) be allowed to operate on all territorial waters of the Philippines without regard to the 15-kilometer limit provided, however, that such bodies of water are seven fathoms, or more, deep in line with the grant of its license as a large commercial fishing operator pursuant to Section 26 of Republic Act No. 8550, as amended.”
The petitioners told the SC: “Judge Zaldy Docena, with a single stroke of his pen, erased wholesale all constitutional and statutory protections over municipal waters within the jurisdiction of local governments.”
They added that the DA-BFAR should also be faulted for its “sluggish defense” of the Fisheries Code, including its failure to timely respond to Mercidar’ petition; and the OSG for its “gross negligence” in defending the welfare of the people.
