The fisherfolk group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas on Sunday urged the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to assist fisherfolk in Samar who have been affected by the red tide for months now.
BFAR raised a red tide alert in the coastal waters of Irong-Irong, Cambatutay and Daram in Western Samar as well as in Matarinao Bay in Eastern Samar and in the coastal waters of Leyte and Calubian Bay in Leyte.
“BFAR should immediately mobilize its calamity fund to assist red-tide affected fishers in the form of economic aid and relief. They should also release its assessment on the numbers of fishers affected by this natural calamity,” Pamalakaya chairman Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya chairperson, said in a statement.
Last month, two people have been reported killed while 38 others were hospitalized in separate red tide poisoning incidents in Eastern Visayas.
Information from the Department of Health showed one of the fatalities was an 81-year-old man who ate the shellfish he bought from Carigara, Leyte. The other victim was a nine-year-old girl from Barangay Tucdao in Kawayan town.
Boyd Cerro, chief of the DoH regional epidemiology unit in Eastern Visayas, said that most of the victims had gotten ill after eating shellfish they found floating in the bay.
Cerro said the health department will continue its monitoring for victims of red tide poisoning, which has no cure.