MORE than 1,000 Dagupan City residents led by fishpond producers have signed a manifesto urging the city government to stop the operation of illegal fish pens which has been threatening the local marine industry.

And the initiators of the manifesto contend it is only the beginning of the mass action.

“Now, the manifesto, next week, we shall sue the city government,” said Alfredo Dawana, a leader of the group.

Dawana, a former chairman of Barangay Tapuac and former president of the Dagupan City Association of Barangay Councils, said, “There is nothing personal or political in our crusade, because I still have the highest respect and admiration for Mayor Al Fernandez, but we have to act on an illegal act, and I hope the mayor, who is a good man, views the matter our way.”

The residents who signed include 14 vacationing Pangasinenses from the United States.

Dawana said he was asked by fellow members of a Pangasinan group in San Francisco, California who joined  ‘Balik Dagupan’ and ‘Balik Pangasinan’ programs to escort them around the city and other parts of the province to see for themselves the ballyhooed improvements in the province.

While they were all impressed by the concrete signs of progress, singling out the new look at the provincial Capitol, the fishpond of Mayor Fernandez and the De Venecia Diversion Road, Dawana said they were disappointed to see the “very many clusters of fish pens in the rivers of the city whose operators are not even paying the required taxes to the city government”.

According to Dawana, residents of Sitio Tocok in Barangay Lucao in the city, have long complained how the operations of illegal fish pens have thrown their fishponds out of business.

“If the illegal fish operations are not stopped, we kill the goose that lay the golden eggs,” referring to the city’s aquaculture industry,”

The group has put out an advertisement in this issue listing some of the signatories.

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