Municipal fishing interests are pushing for legislation to create a Department of Fisheries to ensure adequate enforcement of the recently amended Fisheries Code. The Bureaus of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), an agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), is not enough to fully realize the benefits of Republic Act (RA) 10654, which revised the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 (RA 8550), according to participants at a two-day forum. The conference produced the Katipunan Declaration on Sustainable Fisheries, containing proposals that were presented to the BFAR amid calls for a unified front to address illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing.

Pascual, N. P. A. (2015, October 21). Need for fisheries dep't cited vs illegal fishing. BusinessWorld, p. S1/2.