INTRODUCTION
Geographers and historians have described our country as an archipelago. The names “The Philippine Archipelago”, “The Philippine Islands”, and “The Philippines” — all signify a physical aggregation of our islands and waters.
But there is more to those names than just a physical union of aqua and insula. The descriptions underline the ultimate basis of their unity, that is, the patterns of human activities that have woven inextricably these waters and islands into a unique but diverse Filipino society united under the republic of the Philippines.
This cultural-physical fabric forms the basis for our constitutional and political unity and social cohesion among the islands, waters and people of the Philippines. Together, the human and physical elements provide the Philippine archipelago’s conceptual unity which is firmly enshrined in our constitution.
OUR ARCHIPELAGIC REALITIES
But notwithstanding these, we often forget, if not ignore, the archipelagic realities of our country.
The Philippine Strategy for Sustainable Development of 1990 illustrates this point. The 34-page document gives three pages to coastal resources and devotes the bulk of its pages to land-based activities, but largely ignores the more extensive marine areas.
Not until I appointed a marine scientist as Secretary for the Environment and Natural Resources in the person of Dr. Angel Alcala has the terrestrial orientation taken one a seaward shift.
I associate the regretful tendency to discount the marine components of our archipelagic heritage to our poverty in national ocean consciousness.
A concern for marine issues among the public and our policy-makers needs to be evolved and nurtured, and, with it, a broad and vigilant national ocean constituency. An informed and involved public can ensure that archipelagic uses, priorities and conflicts are addressed adequately through our political processes.
Hard choices as well as uneasy compromises would have to be made down the road. But these must be arrived at through the democratic channels we are committed to strengthen and uphold.
EMPOWERING COASTAL COMMUNITIES
We intend to make those channels meaningful for marginalized coastal communities which are overwhelmingly dependent on marine resources for their existence and survival.
The government is exploring ways to further implement the local government code’s provisions to empower coastal communities in managing their marine resources. Our oceans are far too significant to be left solely to the specialists and special interests.
Yet, at the same time, the significant marine-related sectors of the economy today — fisheries and marine aquaculture; shipping and ports; oil, energy and gas; and tourism and recreation — must avoid fragmentation and achieve integration in order to constitute an effective and responsible political force on marine issues.
These sectors cannot escape accountability to the present and future generations for their use of the nation’s marine wealth. To receive a fair and sustained share of support for marine-based enterprises, they must band together to show the public their social usefulness.
On the government side, almost every agency of government has functions that affect marine concerns. The archipelagic environment makes this situation inevitable. But we need greater coordination of governmental efforts to carry out a variety of ocean functions employing pooled resources.
THE MONITORING, CONTROL AND SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM (MCS)
I am happy, therefore, that the Department of Agriculture (DA) and its Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources have initiated this series of workshops on a monitoring, control and surveillance system (MCS) with a fisheries focus but with multi-functional dimensions.
I wish to commend the Department of Agriculture leadership under Secretary Roberto Sebastian for pushing the needs of the fisheries sector in close coordination with other government agencies. The emerging MCS design considers the functions and resources of all the other agencies with other fisheries-related mandates, including the local governments.
The workshops have also related the fisheries subsectoral interest with the broader ocean policy concerns of the nation.
The cooperation that the other agencies have shown is truly encouraging, and you are all to be commended heartily for that. But all of us must do much more.
Each agency must stop looking upon itself as an island. We must view all agencies as the analog of the archipelagic state in which we live, each part inextricably linked with all others to form one organic whole.
BEYOND THE COASTAL ZONE
We must also learn to manage human activities throughout the range of our archipelago environment. Significant activities on land have profound and immediate effects on the marine environment. Deforestation, unregulated mining, soil erosion, siltation, and land-based pollution are but a few among them.
The archipelago is also characterized by numerous closed or semi-closed marine bodies of water with vulnerable and highly interdependent ecosystems. Thus, management planning has to transcend the coastal zone.
We need to complement efforts along the narrow coastal belt with archipelagic use planning that covers the entire archipelago. Regional planning efforts would have to adjust accordingly. The administrative regions would have to assume responsibility for planning for the sustainable development of vast inland seas and their resources.
On the basis of these regional plans, an archipelago use plan can be formulated which, in turn, can be incorporated into the broader national ocean policy.
The various areas of concern that I have outlined so far have previously yielded to more pressing demands to create a climate of enhanced political stability and to accelerate infrastructure development for economic recovery.
But we can no longer postpone giving proper attention and working on the ocean and its resources. There is now an urgent need for the consolidation of policy efforts among the principal actors in the ocean sector.
Our country’s relative lack of capital requires a sharing of resources designed to upgrade the quality of marine policy decision-making in the government. Clear directions for decision-making must likewise be established.
In the meantime, our neighboring Southeast Asian countries have forged ahead in national and regional marine policy studies.
We need to enhance our marine policymaking capability at the highest levels of government to match the corresponding regional developments, as well as to respond at the national level to local marine-related needs.
A CENTER FOR OCEAN POLICY
Towards this end, government is fully committed to the establishment of a policy advisory body that can present government with policy options on ocean issues.
Such a “Center for Ocean Policy” will combine government direction and support with the private sector’s financial capabilities and resourcefulness, the commitment and service-orientation of NGOs, and the expertise of the academe.
Our government and people will be the principal, although not the sole, beneficiary of this center’s policy advice. Thus, the government is prepared to provide a major portion of the resources required to operate the ocean center.
The center’s lean organization will be outside of the bureaucracy, which will not duplicate it. It will complement the government’s marine programs and assist in upgrading its capabilities to deal with ocean issues.
Certainly, the government will continue to exercise the political authority and responsibility to determine the final courses of action with benefit of the center’s advice.
The policy advisory needs of the country in the ocean area are enormous. The proposed center would have to formulate soonest recommendations on a national ocean policy.
Subsectoral plans would have to be examined in order to pave the way for a coherent national ocean policy that addresses the twin needs for the utilization and conservation of the nation’s marine wealth.
The proposed center’s initial task would be to recommend priority areas of study, inasmuch as our resources do not allow us to address all needs at the same time. The center’s tasks are in a way made easier with the initial multi-agency and multi-sectoral effort to put an MCS system in place.
The MCS in turn can certainly benefit from the support that a center for ocean policy can provide to multi-agency and multi-functional MCS activities.
I expect the center to bring together the best marine experts and specialists of our country. We need to end the mismatch between their training and skills and their actual tasks in the public and private sectors.
A BASE FOR EXPANSION
The center should provide the environment for the free exercise of their talents and insights in conducting policy-oriented marine researches, particularly those involving diplomacy, economics, geo-sciences, engineering, energy, anthropology and marine transportation.
The center should ultimately be the base for the quantitative and qualitative expansion of our technical and policy expertise in this vital area.
The center will have to address the use of marine resources in a sustainable manner within secure maritime borders. In this endeavor, it is necessary to go, geographically, beyond the areas under national jurisdiction, and temporally, beyond the needs of the here and now.
The opportunities as well as the threats arising from developments in the international arena — including the impact of the UN Convention on The Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the various conventions on the environment, as well as the global and regional frameworks for trade, investments and security — will have to be assessed in the light of Philippine national interests.
With these significant measures, i am confident that we shall have begun to restore the sea into the forefront of the Filipino national consciousness as an indispensable element in our quest for sustainable development and to assert our people’s rightful claim to our enjoyment, with others, of the common heritage of mankind.
The road to “Philippines 2000!!!” passes through our 7,107 islands great expanses of waters. Your efforts here will help build, pave and interlink that road to our brighter future. I wish you all the success in your endeavors — and “fish be with you!!!”.
Thank you, and good day.