BULAKAN, Bulacan—In the waning heat of the day, 57-year-old Reneboy Ybañez would begin raking salt from clay-lined salt ponds in Barangay San Nicolas in Bulakan town. By 3 p. m., most of the seawater in the ponds had evaporated, leaving salt crystals that he and the other workers would harvest.

Reneboy and his wife May, 54, collected the mounds of scraped crystals in wicker baskets, which were brought to a large barn for storage and could take months or even years to sell to buyers. Before the day ends, Reneboy refills the salt beds with seawater, ready for the next day’s drying.

This had been the Ybañezes’ daily routine during the dry months of December to May since they were employed at the 80-hectare salt farm in 2009. Three of their children helped them haul the salt crystals.

For their efforts, the family would earn P58,000 for the entire dry season, on top of the food allowance given by the farm owner. During the wet season, when salt farms were closed, they caught and sold fish to augment their income.

Today, the Ybañezes are looking for another means of livelihood after the farm was sold by its owner. Hundreds of other salt farmers in San Nicolas are in a similar predicament.

“Malungkot din sa amin … Sabi nga nila na, ‘di na tayo [makakapag-asin] dito dahil naibili na. Panibago na naman ng maa-apply-an kung saan meron (We’re sad. … They said we can no longer make salt because the farm had already been sold. We now have to apply for jobs elsewhere),” May said.

She said they were not consulted about the sale of the farm. They believe that the property would be developed for residential and commercial use as it is only three kilometers from the New Manila International Airport (NMIA) project site.

The conversion of salt farms and aquaculture areas in Bulacan has intensified in recent years, driven by surging land prices attributed to the NMIA project, according to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in Central Luzon.

“Kapag kasi above market value yung offer sa [owners], so talagang idi-dispose nila ‘yung kanilang farm. They might opt to sell and possibly shift to other businesses,” said Stephen Arlo Lapid, who heads the Fisheries Post-harvest and Marketing Section of the BFAR regional office.

New gateway

The NMIA is expected to be the country’s next international gateway. San Miguel Corp. (SMC) bagged the contract for the P735-billion project, which includes an airfield and airline support facilities, terminals and access points, and development of a 2,500 hectares of land mainly situated in the barangays of Bambang and Taliptip in Bulakan, Bulacan.

In 2020, San Miguel Aerocity Inc. (SMAI), a subsidiary of San Miguel Holdings Corp, was granted a legislative franchise to construct, maintain, and operate the proposed NMIA project under a 50-year concession agreement.  It is expected to start operations by March 2027.

Upon completion, SMAI will manage and maintain the airport before handing it over to the government at the end of the concession period.

According to the company, the facility aims to ease the existing air traffic congestion at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia). At present, Naia’s total passenger capacity is around 33 million annually.

Last year, it accommodated some 45 million passengers, the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) reported. The MIAA projects the number to rise further and likely double to more than 60 million by 2030.

SMC said in its website that the NMIA’s initial passenger capacity will be 35 million a year during the first phase of the project and will increase to 100 million once fully operational.

The new airport is expected to generate over a million direct and indirect jobs, it said. But since groundworks started in 2019, the project has displaced hundreds of residents, fisherfolks and salt farmers in neighboring barangays of Taliptip and Bambang.

SMC said residents of Taliptip voluntarily gave up their land in exchange for cash assistance and titled lots and houses. It has also partnered with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority to offer skills training to students coming from relocated families, with employment prospects for graduates at SMC’s various projects, including the NMIA.

Some residents, however, say they were intimidated and pressured to leave their homes.,

As of this writing, SMC had yet to respond to a letter asking for comments that was sent by the writers of this article and their efforts to follow it up. There was also no word from its media affairs department.

While the NMIA appears to be a game-changer in the country’s air transportation sector and economy, many displaced residents, fisherfolks and salt farmers from Taliptip and Bambang are reportedly reeling from the impact.

In 2019, a fisherfolk group, Pamalakaya, estimated that at least 700 fisherfolk and coastal families would be displaced by the airport project. In 2020, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that around 3,000 fisherfolk have agreed to leave their homes.

Gilbert Sebastian, 56, a former salt farmer in Bambang, said many of his co-workers were informed by their employers that the farms had all been sold. He now works as a bangkero or boatman.

“Before, there were 41 boats to ferry passengers. I’m now the only one left because there were hardly any passengers” Gilbert said in Filipino. “Before, I had only one day of rest. Now, in one week, I have six days and only one day of work.”

More salt farms at risk

Neighboring barangays of Bambang and Taliptip are wary about the ongoing and planned land development, too.

Aside from at least 1,700 hectares of land covered by the airport, the entire project extends to an estimated 2,560 hectares for other components and facilities, according to the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) of the NMIA.

The legislative franchise awarded to SMAI the right to develop an “airport city” in areas adjacent to the NMIA and deemed leasable for industrial, logistics and commercial purposes as stated in the project’s Environmental Compliance Certificate. The development is part of the Bulacan Special Economic Zone and Free Port or the Bulacan EcoZone (BuZ), which is described as a “self-reliant and self-sustaining” aviation and commercial hub.

Under Republic Act No. 11999, or the Bulacan Special Economic Zone and Freeport Act, the BuZ will cover land in Malolos, Meycauayan, Bulakan, Paombong, Guiguinto, Balagtas, Bocaue, Marilao, Obando and Sta. Maria in Bulacan. Other parts of Bulacan and surrounding provinces may also be declared part of the BuZ through a presidential proclamation.

A 2018 master plan by SMC for the airport complex identified residential and commercial development areas in at least five barangays in Bulakan, including salt farms and aquaculture sites.

Bulacan has 486 hectares of salt farms in Bulakan, Malolos and Paombong, according to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). These farms host a total of 8,940 salt ponds that produce over 10,000 metric tons (200,000 cavans) of salt in a year.

If the development projects in these areas push through as part of the airport city and the BuZ, these could affect the livelihood of over 100 maestros or tenants, 520 farm laborers, and hundreds more kargador or porters.

In San Nicolas alone, at least 40 tenants and 200 salt farmers listed by the BFAR may lose their jobs or their farms to give way to the development projects. For Manuel Clara, 54, a farm caretaker for the past three decades, salt-making is not only his main source of income but a passed-down tradition in his family as well.

“My grandfather perhaps worked for some 30 years, too. So did my father. It may have been more or less 100 years that the family has worked here,” he said in Filipino.

While the owners will be compensated, salt farmers like him are still waiting for something definite. “I was told that we would somehow receive an amount as an employee. … But no figures are being floated,” Clara said.

Under Bulakan’s 2010-2020 Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP), the coastal areas of San Nicolas were designated for aquaculture. This may change, however, with the new land-use framework to be established by the Bulacan Economic Zone and Free Port Authority (BEZA), which manages the BuZ, as mandated by RA 11999.

While the law calls for “inter-local development and coordination,” an expert said local communities may be excluded from the planning process.

“There was no consultation in the process of drawing up the CLUPs. Though there was NGO representation, many steps are still required and excluding these would lead to cases of displacement,” Rafael Dimalanta, a researcher at the University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies, said in Filipino.

He noted that public-private partnerships are rooted in the “profit-seeking” and “corporate” nature of local government units, as mandated by the Local Government Code.

“In many cases, LGUs are receiving unsolicited proposals from the private sector … If a proposal comes from one corporation, they agree to it. Profit interest comes first,” Dimalanta added.

Jose Albert Ferrer, the head of the Bulakan Municipal Planning and Development Office, admitted that the development project will result in loss of agricultural and aquaculture areas. He, however, said the NMIA will boost employment opportunities and could accelerate the town’s transition into a city by 2028.

“This land use will be converted into special use once developed, which will result in rapid urbanization growth. [Moreover] … the conversion of huge rice land areas to a Commercial Business District (CBD) will cater [to the] business affairs of the NMIA,” Ferrer said in an email..

Under the Local Government Code of 1991, reclassification is limited to 10% of a municipality’s total agricultural land at the time of the passage of a land-use ordinance. The President, however, can authorize a municipality to reclassify lands in excess of the limits when “public interest so requires.”

Aside from issues on land use, the airport and airport city will disrupt fishing activities and marine transportation in the area.

Based on the airport’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment report, the project could potentially affect those who operate fishing structures, those fishing within the area’s vicinity by boat, and those sailing across the project’s maritime coverage.

“Traffic and transportation of construction materials to the site could negatively affect local road users as well as having potential impacts on marine traffic movements … These may also cause community health and safety impacts such as increased risk of road and maritime traffic collision and nuisance effects such as noise and dust,” it stated.

This could restrict fisherfolks and salt farmers like the Ybañezes who rely on fishing to augment their income from salt-making.

Industry meltdown

Central Luzon used to be one of the top salt producers in the Philippines. Bulacan supplied almost half of the country’s total salt demand in the 1980s, according to a 2003 report by Bulatlat.com.

With the passage of Republic Act No. 8172, or the Act for Salt Iodization Nationwide (ASIN), in 1995, however, salt farmers were required to boost the micronutrient content of their product with iodine. This led to the closure of many salt farms in Bulacan for lack of iodization capacity while others struggled to market their harvest with the newly imposed 12% value-added tax.

The ASIN Law was an attempt to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) in the population, including goiter, hypothyroidism and premature births.

The government still allows the importation of industrial grade or non-iodized salt, as reported by the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI) in April 2023, local manufacturers were tasked with the iodization of imported goods.

In 1997, the government decided to gradually lower the tariff on imported salt to 1%, making it significantly cheaper than locally produced salt. At the time, there was no regulatory agency to protect the interests of the salt industry.

“The DOH (Department of Health) was focused primarily on salt iodization, while the Department of Agriculture did not include salt in its plans,” the Philippine Association of Salt Industry Networks (PhilASIN) reported in its 2021-2026 Philippine Salt Industry Roadmap.

Consequently, the country became increasingly dependent on salt imports from Australia, China and Thailand. In 2020, salt imports rose to as high as 93% of the annual total salt requirement of the country, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).

However, latest data from the NFRDI estimated that the contribution of domestic salt farmers is closer to 16.78% of the country’s total salt demand, higher than previously reported.

Mimaropa (Mindoro-Marinduque-Romblon-Palawan) is the top salt-producing region, contributing 57.43% of the country’s annual local output. It is followed by the Ilocos Region with 31.93%. Central Luzon only contributes 4.11% to the local salt production, mostly coming from Bulacan province.

In 2003, Bulatlat reported the existence of more than 50 salt farms in Bulacan, but the latest data from BFAR’s regional office showed that only about 15 of these farms remain, including three in the town of Bulakan.

The NFRDI cited land conversion as one of the leading factors in the dwindling salt production in the country. Its 2022 study on the industry identified profitable land-use conversion as one of the key constraints faced by salt farmers in places like Bulacan and Cavite.

“Given the upcoming reclamation and expansion projects along Manila Bay, the region’s [Central Luzon] current 4.11% contribution is expected to diminish further,” the agency  reported.

“The salt farms in Bulacan were bought by private entities for conversion into industrial spaces,”  Gezelle Tadifa, NFRDI Officer-in-Charge for Fish Handling and Processing, said in Filipino in an interview.

Reviving a dying industry

Last March 11, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed Republic Act No. 11985 or the Philippine Salt Industry Development Act, which aims to revitalize the local salt industry and achieve salt self-sufficiency.

Under the law, salt farmers will no longer bear the burden of iodizing their harvest. Instead, this responsibility will fall on local processors and distributors of imported salt.

A 9% tariff will also be imposed on imported salt, which will be primarily used to develop the domestic salt industry. “That’s worth four hundred million a year, that tariff,”PhilASIN president Gerard Khonghun said. “As far as we’re concerned, lahat ng hiningi namin, halos lahat, nandoon [sa batas].”

The law also established the Philippine Salt Industry Development Council, headed by the secretary of agriculture. This body will lead the creation of a five-year roadmap that will chart all short, medium and long-term plans for local salt trade development.

State agencies and salt-producing cooperatives have already started working on the half-decade plan to modernize the industry. However, this interagency collaboration will take time due to the law’s lack of implementing rules and regulations, according to the BFAR’s Lapid.

“Medyo mas mahirap kasi … the agency would be mandated to specifically identify their roles. With all the agencies working towards its development, talagang appropriate needs would be developed … and hopefully help the salt producers to really sustain and expand their operation,” Lapid said.

In cooperation with Bulakan MAO, the bureau has distributed production equipment to the farmers, such as water pumps, clay tiles, baskets and solar lights.  

‘Too late’

For salt farmers like the Ybañezes, government efforts to revive the salt industry are too late, now that major threats like land conversion continue to destroy the salt farms they depend on. “More farms were being sold than those remaining,” May said.

Even BFAR’s Lapid admitted that their office had noticed the impact of the NMIA on the salt farmers. “The number of farmers we are now assisting has been reduced.”

While the government is just beginning to revitalize the local salt industry, the Ybañezes and other salt farmers in Bulakan must lick their wounds and seek greener pastures to survive.

“We can apply for work in a number of other salt farms. We may rest for one or two years before we return to our old job. But it will be elsewhere, not here,” May said.

This story project was produced with support from the University of the Philippines’ Department of Journalism. —ED.

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