Scrambling To Survive

FILIPINO FISHING FAMILIES CONFRONT THE WORLD'S CHANGING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE SEA

- CHARLIE CAMPBELL AND CHAD DE GUZMAN

Traditional fishing boats in Aurora province, which was hit by Typhoon Man-yi

That’s when her husband Marionito’s boat appears on the shimmering horizon of the Pacific. By the time his skiff has been hauled onto the shingle beach, it’s already clear whether his toil has been profitable. Today was not: just eight small sardines and mackerel from five hours casting handlines at sea. “Almost nothing,” laments their 11-year-old son, Cjay, as he clambers back up the slope to their shack.

The catch is sufficient to provide the family a proper meal but won't help rebuild their home, which was destroyed late last year when a record-breaking six consecutive storms battered the Philippines. Ever since November, the Reyes family has lived here, beneath tarpaulin and nipa palm, wedged between crashing waves and a coastal highway in northeastern Luzon. When it rains, water gushes through gaps in the roof. At night, passing juggernauts rattle the structure, shaking them from their slumber. With no locks or even doors, passing strangers sometimes wander inside.

“I find it hard to sleep and worry that one of the trucks might hit us,” says Noemi, 42, as she cleans and guts the fish for traditional sinigang sour soup.

It’s a precarious existence that is all too common in the Philippines, an archipelago nation of 115 million people scattered across more than 7,000 islands. The sea remains the lifeblood of the country. Fishing employs over 1.6 million people, whose catch is the nation’s principal protein source, a daily bounty of some 12,000 tons. But it’s a relationship that has become increasingly strained. Intensifying typhoons and dwindling catches are transforming what has always been the font of life into a source of destruction and despair.

“Sometimes the sea is all about luck,” shrugs Marionito, 50, as he collapses exhausted onto the timber platform that sleeps the couple and five of their nine children.