(Last of two parts)

Bert Cabornay, who at 56 has been fishing for three decades, used to farm clams and mussels in the area now occupied by the Manila-Cavite Expressway or Cavitex. Forced to move farther out, he now takes 20 minutes in his boat to reach his mussel farm in Bacoor Bay.

Building his own farm was not easy. The bamboo structures to which the mussels are attached require constant maintenance and replacement to withstand typhoons and monsoon winds. He also spends his entire day, and sometimes even sleeps, in his makeshift hut to guard his farm from thieves.

Despite Cabornay’s efforts, it has been a year since he made a profit from his mussel farm. His harvest has been declining since reclamation activities began in the bay four years ago.

In fact, a small artificial island can already be seen near his farm. 

“The quality of the water has deteriorated because of the reclamation. It’s like the ocean is being disturbed. Nothing like this was happening before the project started,” Cabornay said in Filipino.

The livelihood of fishers and mussel farmers in Bacoor is in danger, with a central business district akin to Bonifacio Global City in Taguig set to rise in the very sea that they sail. Soon, high-rise condominiums, malls and industrial zones will be built as part of the 320-hectare Bacoor Reclamation and Development Project (BRDP) and the 100-hectare Diamond Reclamation and Development Project (DRDP). The twin projects are a joint venture between the Bacoor City government and Frabelle Fishing Corp.

Local officials believe that this joint venture will bring jobs and revenues to Bacoor. But it will come with a cost, especially for thousands of residents whose lives flow with the sea. 

Mussels in peril

Green mussels used to earn for Cabornay between P100,000 and P200,000 during the six-month harvest season. But now, he deems himself lucky if he can fill a medium-sized paint bucket with mussels each time he sets out to sea.

“The last time I made a profit was last year. Nothing so far this year,” he said. “I tried, but the harvest is sparse.  It used to be that there was enough to finance my bamboo purchases. Now the mussels are just for our meals.” 

Bacoor Bay is one of the biggest mussel-producing areas in the Philippines, along with Maqueda Bay in Samar, Sapian Bay in Capiz, and Manila Bay.

Data from the Cavite Ecological Profile (CEP) in 2010-2021 show that Bacoor City topped the province’s mussel production for 12 years. In 2021, Bacoor made up 100% of Cavite’s mussel production at 6,809.75 metric tons.

But despite the relative decline of mussel production in Bacoor, data also show that it has never had a year without green mussel harvests, compared to other cities in the province, such as Kawit and Cavite City. 

In 2013, Bacoor fishers harvested over 16,000 metric tons of mussels before seeing a sharp decline in the next five years. The notable decrease in mussel production can be attributed to the alig—or poor water quality—in Bacoor Bay, said Allan Chua, the city’s agricultural services officer in charge.

“We really fear water pollution,” Chua said in Filipino. “It affects not only mussels but also crabs. You see crabs floating dead in the water, or they are stunted. Even if they’re small, they are caught and cooked.”

Aside from pollution, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) Region IV-A identified land reclamation as one of the threats to mussel cultivation. The building of land structures over the sea, such as in Cavite, has caused congestion in the province’s shellfish farms.

Consequently, the lack of cultivation areas in Bacoor has led to dwindling shellfish production, the BFAR report said.

Cabornay said authorities have also forbidden mussel farmers from installing bamboo stands or fixing their cultivation areas. “They call your attention when you make improvements in your farm. They’ve measured the area,” he said.

Former environment undersecretary Benny Antiporda claimed that bamboo stands in  mussel farms are causing pollution, in an effort to justify the demolition of such structures in Manila Bay in 2021. 

Compensation

According to the BRDP and DRDP Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports, the mussel farms are most vulnerable to the twin projects. As compensation, Frabelle and Diamond are mandated to shoulder “all foregone incomes and cost of relocation” of those displaced and otherwise affected. 

Cabornay has been cultivating his 0.4066-hectare mussel farm for more than two decades. He has invested about P100,000 in it. But because mussel farm owners are only given P0.50 per square meter for their farms, Chua said, Cabornay will receive the meager amount of P2,033. On the other hand, mussel harvesters and cleaners are not entitled to any amount. 

All affected mussel farms are to be moved to the mussel culture zone designated by the local government, west of the reclamation project. 

But Cabornay believes that these initiatives undermine the fishers’ capacity to adjust to this setup, and that designating a spot for mussel farms creates limitations in space and resources.

“The relocation area is crowded. If you use rope to designate borders, everything will get tangled up when there are typhoons or strong waves,” he said. 

And as more mussel farms are to be relocated farther from the coast, the fishers would need a docking place for their boats. The local government also has plans for this aspect. 

“There is currently a plan to establish a wharf measuring around 281 meters long, 14 meters wide and 5 meters high which can accommodate 300 bancas,” the Coastal Resource Management Plan 2023-2025 of Bacoor City states.

The same document indicates that in the year 2022, a total of 515 boats were registered. But there is no visible progress in the structure other than a tiny slab of concrete situated near Barangay Sineguelasan.

“Currently, there is no fisherman’s wharf and dormitory that can serve the needs of the fishermen,” the document states.

Said Cabornay: “It’s only a tiny place, and it’s not even fixed yet. If there’s a strong wind, or a typhoon, the boats would surely crash against each other because it’s open space. There should be a seawall. But as it is, they haven’t fixed it yet.” 

Aside from the threats to livelihood, the reclamation projects’ EIAs also identified the displacement of residents as a major issue.

Like a fish out of water

A makeshift bamboo roof and a blue tarp shield Arni Villamon’s family from the harsh sunlight. Crumbled walls mark the remains of her old home. Fishnets hang where windows used to be. But Villamon chooses to live in this shack in Talaba Dos, Bacoor, rather than move away from the sea.

For decades, Villamon and her husband, Fonso, have sustained their family through fishing. She recalled that they never went hungry even during the pandemic because she had savings with which to buy food. She even had an extra ₱35,000 to build a new dwelling place just across from their house.

But in July 2020, the local government ordered the relocation of families living in coastal areas in preparation for the reclamation projects. The Villamons moved to the relocation area in Naic.

“We had no extra money when we moved to Naic. Some of our neighbors had savings because they had stable jobs. But fishers like ourselves who rely on our daily income had none,” Villamon said in Filipino.

Villamon said the authorities offered only a bag of groceries and ₱10,000 in cash aid to the displaced fishing families like themselves. There were no sustainable jobs or livelihood programs.

Naic is a coastal municipality but the families relocated from Bacoor currently reside in Rancho Verde, 3.6 kilometers from Manila Bay. Surrounded by farmlands, the new homes of Bacoor’s fishers offer no means to make a living. 

With no means of support, Villamon’s family returned to Bacoor to ensure they had enough to eat.

The Villamons are among the 395 informal-settler families (ISFs) that the local government has relocated to either Naic or Ciudad Kaunlaran in Molino, Bacoor. 

Even before the reclamation project was conceptualized, the local government had planned to move the families living in “danger zones” along Bacoor Bay to “safer areas,” said Ligaya Cas, an officer of Bacoor’s Housing, Urban Development and Resettlement Department. 

Cas said the families that will be affected by the reclamation project are also located in “danger areas,” so the local government is just keeping them safe.

Out of 1,961 identified ISFs, 1,387 that were qualified for the government’s housing program have yet to be relocated. Because the families had to pay up to P600,000 to own their homes, single or elderly individuals living alone were excluded from the program. 

The local government also disqualified those renting spaces in Bacoor. Around 179 families have been disqualified from availing themselves of the housing program. 

Villamon argued that while their home in Naic is considerably safer than that in Bacoor, the government should have ensured jobs especially for families like hers who have relied on fishing almost their entire lives. 

She also pointed out that public schools and hospitals are far from the housing project. Her children have to walk for 38 minutes just to reach the Malainen Bago Elementary School, the educational facility nearest to where they live. Additional spending on commuting to get the kids to school meant a further drain on their finances. 

Meanwhile, only private hospitals serve the entirety of Naic. The sole affordable public healthcare facility in the town is a rural health unit in its center.

The relocation site’s inaccessibility to basic services and livelihood prompted other families to sell their homes in Naic, said Villamon.

 Cas confirmed that some relocated residents have left the area, but dispelled the notion that the local government fell short of its promise to provide liveable homes to its constituents. She also said a school building is currently being built near the relocation site. 

But Villamon said the government should have ensured that the relocated residents would be provided ample assistance or livelihood programs to help them adjust. Merely providing dwelling places is not enough to quell hunger, she said. 

“It’s true that our house here in Naic is safer and better than in Bacoor. We can sleep well here. Still, I prefer our home in Bacoor because at least we had something to eat there. Here, my house looks nice, but we are struggling,” she said.

‘Where are we now?’

As development in Bacoor moves forward with promises of job creation and increased revenue for the city, fishers like Villamon and Cabornay expressed concern about their fate. 

For the displaced residents, the fleet of boats that used to dock off Bacoor Bay is now just a memory of a once thriving town where fishers’ worries about food, shelter, and livelihood were held firmly at bay. 

“It’s hard to be poor,” Cabornay said. “The ones who will benefit from the reclamation are those with money. They won’t hire fishers like us. We probably can’t even go near the planned commercial district because we don’t have any money,” he said.

Meanwhile, the waters that kept them alive have been dumped with sand, forcing the fishers to witness the burial of Bacoor’s huge potential in mussel farming and fishing—the only way of life they know.  

Cabornay and Villamon, like many Bacoor fishers, hope that the pursuit of development will not cast adrift those who have been the lifeblood of the city’s fishing industry.

“Development is okay, but fishers like us should not be excluded from it,” Cabornay said. “They always say that the development of an area means the development of fishers like me and the community … But where are we now? We were shoved to a place with no livelihood.” 

He added: “We won’t fight them because it is a government project. But they should consider small people first … The fish we catch are not just for us to eat. Many people also benefit from what we harvest.” 

This story project was produced with the support of the Department of Journalism of the University of the Philippines Diliman.

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