At the inquiry of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, BFAR officials were grilled by its committee chairman, Villar, for supposedly snubbing the panel’s requests for reports on the implementation of the Republic Act No 10654 or the Act to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IUUF), which amended RA 8550 or the Fisheries Code of 1998. Villar, in particular, was irked after the BFAR failed to provide the committee some information on fines they have collected from those caught engaged in illegal fishing, from 1998, when RA 8550 was signed into law, up to the present.

Terrazola, V. E. P. (2018, March 20). Villar scolds BFAR at Senate. Manila Bulletin, p. 2.