P1M profit per cage for cultured bangus in Sual

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

SUAL – It is one million pesos profit per cage of bangus (milkfish) for an investor of a fish cage here after he sold his product in Navotas and Malabon in Metro Manila, according to the mayor here.

Mayor Roberto Arcinue said with 20,000 milkfish inside each cage raised for seven months, the investor can get a  profit of P60 for every kilo sold at P160.

“It will give the fish cage owner a net profit of one million pesos, just for one cage alone,” he cited.

Arrays of Bangus (Milkfish) fish cages at a sea channel.

There are 750 fish cages with an average size of 10 x 10  square meters a depth of six meters orderly arranged at the Cabalitian Channel here.

According to the South Asian Fishery Development Center, the frame of the cage is made of bamboo, G.I or HDPE pipes. Its floaters are made of styrofoam, empty plastic containers. The moorings are made of cement, blocks, GI pegs or anchors. The cage can be arranged in quadrant or clusters.

“Each of the cages can fetch to hundreds of thousands of pesos,” Arcinue told this paper.

They are owned by different owners that hailed from Pangasinan and as far as Bulacan Province, the mayor said.

“It has multiplier effect as each cage employs two persons. With 750 cages that will be 1,500 workers that contribute to the activity of the local economy,” he cited.

The 750 cages here give ten million pesos yearly as business taxes to the public coffer of the first class town.

Under the Amended Fishery Code of this western Pangasinan town, fish cage owners are required to pay a yearly rental fee of only P12,000 and P5,000 business tax per cage. A five-peso per banyera or tub is also collected on those harvested milkfish.

Arcinue cited that daily bangus harvest in the 750 fish cages is 60 tons a day or 60,000 kilos.

Because of that volume, this town is the No. 1 supplier of the milkfish in the country according to the Bureau of Fisheries & Natural Resources.

This coastal town, host of the 1,200 megawatts coal power plant, is the second richest town in the Philippines in terms of assets and tax collection, according to the latest report of the Commission on Audit .