A number of stakeholders in the fishery sector had been calling for the establishment of a Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DFAR), separate from the Department of Agriculture (DA). Its proponents cite two main justifications. One is that under the DA, the fishery sector is not accorded proper attention as the agency has to attend to the development of numerous commodities. Two, as a result of that inadequate attention, despite being an archipelagic country with expansive coastal areas and rich aquatic resources, the development of our aquatic resources in general and the fishing communities in particular has been painfully slow.

However, the first argument rests on tenuous ground because it is not the fault of DA if the resources devoted to the fishery sector is small. DA has proposed and lobbied for a greater budget for the sector but Congress does not seem sympathetic to the idea. Depending on the sitting political administration, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) obtains an annual budget of around P3 to P5 billion. This amount is obviously not enough to cover the huge investment requirements of the fishery sector.