ZAMBOANGA CITY, Zamboanga Sibugay—Incoming Department of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol recently announced here his plan to put up in Sulu a cold storage which will also serve as regional food terminal for Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi (BaSulTa).
Piñol is currently undertaking a region-to-region visit and consultation with leaders of local government units through his self-styled “Biyaheng Bukid” caravan.
He stressed that a cold storage would no longer allow BaSulTa fishermen to look for the market “but would merely deliver their catch to the cold storage area.”
Piñol, who grew up in the agricultural town of Mlang, North Cotabato, learned that BaSulTa sea waters boast of abundant fish varieties, including tamban, known as sardine fish.
The former three-term governor of his native province stressed that the establishment of a regional food terminal in the strategically located Sulu will also “help stabilize prices of sea products since fisherfolk will no longer entirely rely on middlemen who buy their fish at low price and sell them at high cost.”
Piñol is conducting nationwide agri-fishery assessment “to determine what the incoming President Rodrigo Duterte administration should do to help uplift the socio-economic condition of the country’s farmers and fisherfolk.