1.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is the government

agency responsible for the development, improvement, management, and
conservation of the country’s fisheries and aquatic resources. It was reconsituted as
a line bureau by virtue of Republic Act 8550 (Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998. The
bureau is under the Department of Agriculture.

It’s functions include creating frameworks relating to its mandate on the Philippine
fisheries and aquatic resource, monitor and develop the said resources, and
coordinate with other agencies regarding their projects. The power to dissolve
BFAR lies on the hands of the congress through repeal or ammendment of RA
8550. If repealed, the congress could create a new law establishing a Department of
Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.

2. Separating the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources has it’s own benefits
as a full-fledged department. It would be able to coordinate better due to the
elimination of chain of command as it has to process its projects to the Department of
Agriculture before it could do it’s function. The delay is caused by the organizational
structure. Given enough autonomy, the enforcement of the laws on fisheries and
aquatic resources are executed faster.

Moreover, DOA has different bureaus under it and hence the national focus of
the department is split between the different areas the bureaus are handling. If the
leadership is biased towards a specific bureau then there is a high chance that
fisheries and aquatic resources gets less attention, less manpower, and less budget.

Another problem is the problem in limited resources, the DOA could only justify
as much budget as it could to the congress before distributing it to the different
bureau’s. In another perspective, all Bureau’s under the DOA ought to justify their
share to the budget before it’s brought to the congress. A Department of Fisheries
enjoys it’s own autonomy regarding the issue on budget proposal. This would allow it
to create projects whose only problem is to convince the congress to give them the
budget proposed.

Speaking of execution of projects, the mandate of BFAR to execute all laws

governing the management and conservation of fishing and aquatic resources will be
clearer. It may have that mandate, but the problem is that they still ought to
coordinate to authorities in order to enact the law instead of being the first response
to such violations as they are only limited to being a “writing desk” whose job is only
to monitor, write reports, research and coordinate for DOA as per being a bureau.

3. While the functions of BFAR is quite limited, it’s already enough so that there
would not be any confusion of who should implement the laws regarding fisheries
and aquatic resources. They could coordinate such violations to other agencies in
order for them to ensure the implementation of the law as they are doing in the status
quo. If they ought to become a department, in order to be different from it’s former
BFAR form, they should create a specific unit that would implement such laws, but
they’ll most likely coordinate with other agencies anyway.

The question is whether they ought to function better as a bureau under the DOA
or as a Department of their own. Another problem of being a department is the
redundancy of their function with other departments such as the coast guard when it
comes to guarding the fisheries within the Philippine exclusive economic zone.
DENR also has functions that could cover the fisheries when it comes to
environmental issues. This implies that the function of the new Fisheries is already
being done by other agencies and hence their coordination is enough.

Will their functions be better if they’re a bureau? The establishment of such

department may allow more executive powers for the laws to be enacted, but the
problem is that they’re going to need more manpower in order to function better more
than a bureau could do. Given the redundancy of policies to be enacted, then it
would be worth it that BFAR would stay as it is.