By Joe Espiritu
Columnist
Bohol Sunday Post
A few nights ago, gunfire was heard in the municipal waters of Jagna. Or was it in Jagna? Fortunately, no one was hit, just a few misses. The boat was sailed to Jagna, where it was moored there until fines had been paid. The boat was a purse seiner, poaching in the municipal waters. What could not be established is whether the area was part of the Jagna waters or its neighboring town of Garcia Hernandez
Elements of the Jagna PNP, who said that poachers were in the Jagna municipal waters, boarded the boat and directed it to sail for Jagna Port. However, the Garcia Hernandez PNP were of the opinion that the boat was in Garcia waters so they boarded the Bantay Dagat boat and gave chase. When abeam of the fishing boat, the Garcia police called over the loud hailer to the person in the bridge to heave to that means stop.
With the Jagna police already on board, the crew of the fishing boat refused the order. Warning shots were fired by the Garcia police. Or that would have been a twenty-one gun salute. What was claimed as warning shots went through the bridge missing the helmsman .by a whisker or some say by a pubic hair since few of us sport whiskers. Luckily, the Jagna police on board kept their heads literally and figuratively. They refused to fire back. That would have been a massacre at the worst or ambak pare at best since the Bantay Dagat service boat is wooden.
The scenario could have been this; both the Jagna PNP and the Garcia PNP could have been sure that the boat was poaching in their waters. None of them could take bearings, that is if they knew how and it was night at that time. Both elements went to apprehend the poacher but the Jagna police was there first.
While navigating to Jagna, the Garcia police caught up with them.
With no blinking lights and siren, the CLEC boat cannot be identified. The loudhailer could not be heard over the engines so they claim. Even if the order to stop was heard it were ignored for one reason or another. The warning shots could have been aimed at the sky like Jovirt, or just over the bridge. However, a small boat on an open sea makes a very unsteady platform. An errant wave could send the shots astray. The boat was eventually tied up in Jagna and both police stations try to seek a way out of this mess.
Purse seiners are the bane of marginal fishermen of Jagna and Garcia Hernandez.
They are banned from municipal waters, which stretch thirty kilometers from the shores. Fines, imprisonment and confiscation of fishing gear - hopefully -, would be imposed on those violating the ban. However, the fines are so small, imprisonment and confiscation never imposed that the seiners take the risk.
When caught, they claim that they were fishing outside but currents pushed them into the municipal waters. Meantime, they sweep the seas clean of mackerels and other pelagic fishes. Now that shots have been fired at them perhaps, those boats will keep clear of municipal water. Or perhaps they come better armed since the catch is worth a fight and the fines are small.
The purse seiners are not the only poachers. There are the bozo fishermen. They spearfish at night using air compressors to allow them to breath underwater. They steal catch from bobos or bamboo traps and maliciously destroy them in the process. They spray reef crevasses with cyanide from ketchup dispensers to drive fishes into the open so they could be speared. They leave whitened spots of dead coral in their wake.
Bozo divers may be hard to apprehend when fishing but they could be apprehended while selling their catch or when coming home at dawn with their paraphernalia and catch. They live in Malinao, Garcia Hernandez. The fish that they sell are reef and rock fishes and any market vendor, who cannot identify the fisherman of those kinds of fishes, could be charged as accessories to the crime.
Since most Jagna fishermen know those people, it is impossible that the personnel of PNP Stations of Jagna and Garcia Hernandez do not know them.
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Topic: Gunfire heard off Jagna seawaters (Read 1911 times)