Dagupan Mayor consults Scarborough Shoal's fishermen

OCULAR INSPECTION. Dagupan City Mayor Belen Fernandez 
(5th from left)  and staff, Japanese and Philippines' media men, and lawyer
 Gilbert T. 
Andres (3rd from left) of the  Roque & Butuyan Law Offices posterity pose
 in one of their ocular inspections and interviews  last Saturday
 with the beleaguered fishermen in Sta. Cruz and Masinloc, Zambales
 and Brgy. Cato, Infanta in Pangasinan. These  folks have been incessantly 
harassed by the Chinese Coast Guard in Scarborough Shoal,
 Zambales.

Mayor Fernandez leads the group because she would be going in the
 middle of June to the United Nations in New York City as resource 
speaker on environment of the United Nations Convention on the Law 
of the Sea (UNCLOS). MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

A village councilman and leader of the fisher folks at Cato in Infanta, Pangasinan explains

to Mayor Fernandez and Professor Nicanor Melecio (extreme right), Head, Public Alert 

and Response Management Center of Dagupan City, the fate of fishermen after the Chinese Coast Guard repeatedly drive them away  since 2012 to fish at the Shoal.

The crew of the craft, with its small boats on both of its floaters, prepare for the 18 hours trip'

to Scarborough Shoal. 

Fishermen in Cato, Infanta said that since May 1 the Chinese

Coast Guard nonchalantly allowed them to fish at the Shoal.

Mountain of soil that contained nickel and other minerals from Zambales province being prepared to be transported

in a barge docked at the wharf of Barangay Cato, Infanta in Pangasinan.

The barge ferries the minerals to the Chinese ships that wait in the high

seas of Infanta.

STA CRUZ, ZAMBALES. Eva Visperas of the Philippine Star interviews a
fisherman in Sta. Cruz, Zambales.

While Mayor Fernandez and Lawyer Andres take notes.
Fernandez  and Andres, a Manila based lawyer,
will go to the United Nations in the middle
of June.

A resident of Masinloc, Zambales excitedly holds the arm of Mayor Fernandez. She was overjoyed to

 meet the mayor she and other residents there saw only on national television broadcast

 from  Dagupan City.

Fishermen, tricycle drivers, and sales ladies  in Infanta, Pangasinan and Sta. Cruz and Masinloc, Zambales 

immediately recognized and warmly greeted the mayor when they saw her.

"We always saw her at the news of GMA-7 and ABS-CBN," one of them quipped.

A fisherman tells his experiences at Scarborough to lawyer Andres who is an associate of Kabayan

Party List incoming congressman lawyer Harry Roque. 

Both these lawyers helped the fishermen

filed a case at the United Nations versus the  series of harassment by 
the Chinese against them.

 This former Davao City based fisherman in Masinloc, Zambales told media men and Mayor Fernandez that former Marine Capt. Nicanor Faeldon and Atty Harry Roque plan to rent his boat for P35,000 for an 18 hours trip from Masinloc to Scarborough Shoals to protest China’s encroachment. The trip will not happen anymore because Faeldon is the Custom chief.
By the way, most of the fishermen in Masinloc, Sta. Cruz, and Subic, Zambales and Infanta, Pangasinan came from Surigao and Davao City.