DENR as salt maker?
By Leonardo Micua
OUR province, Pangasinan, derived it name from the world “asin” or salt. Because of this, I could hardly believe that we are already running out of salt and, worse, could no longer supply partly the needs of the whole nation.
We used to produce a lot of salt in big quantities in Bolinao and Dasol, and in moderate quantities in Binmaley, San Fabian and other coastal areas. In Bolinao, salt was produced in salt beds by the Pacific Farms, known to be one of the largest producer of salt throughout the country until it was taken over by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in February 2021.
After that, I already lost tract of salt production in that part of Pangasinan since Pacific Farms already turned over its assets and property to the national government.
The processing of salt in Binmaley and San Fabian takes clean saline water from the fishponds and the sea and boiled in large vats till the water solidifies into salt. My late mother-in-law used to produce salt in their almost dry fishpond in Pallas, Binmaley by cooking clean saline water from the fishpond. But few years before she died, she stopped the business because of her inability to procure firewood used for boiling the saline water to turn it into salt.
In San Fabian, the salt maker admitted his difficulty in finding rice chaffs, which he uses to boil saline water from the sea. Previously, rice chaffs from rice mills were just being discarded and treated as agricultural wastes. Later on, rice millers began to keep the chaffs and earned extra income by selling these to salt makers by the sacks.
The scarce supply of rice chaffs and firewood nowadays and the non-operation of the Pacific Farms was a big problem not only to salt consumers in Pangasinan but in the whole country. .Consequently, Pangasinan has stopped supplying even just part of salt requirements of the whole country.
The salt farms in Dasol remain in operation but are dependent on the availability of sunshine which are rare during rainy season.
Now, the country needs to step up its importation of salt from China and Australia to fill up the nation’s domestic requirement of 300,000 metric tons of salt per year.
Because of shortage of salt, expect salt to begin to be sold at much higher prices that soon many cannot afford.
The operation of the Pacific Farm was the most sophisticated of its kind in Pangasinan if not in the entire country. The owner of the salt farm was able to integrate modern salt making with tourism, that for a time it allowed visitors to have an educational tour of its promises to have a clearer view of salt making activities and to see a salt mountain onboard a salt train.
It was learned that during its heydays, Pacific Farms was producing over 15,000 metric tons of quality salt every year and was the nation’s biggest producer of quality salt. I don’t know what happened after the company yielded its assets to DENR PENRO when it didn’t renew its lease agreement over 500 hectares of foreshore land that resulted in a court case tried before the Regional Trial Court since 2002.
So for the record, DENR through its Assets Management Team, has officially taken over the assets and properties of the Pacific Farms, Inc. in Bolinao on February 26, 2021 after the expiration of its foreshore land lease contract with the agency. But I don’t believe DENR PENRO has neither the capacity nor capability to run the farm and produce salt themselves.
I have not heard if DENR entered into another lease contract with other firms because no public bidding was announced in newspapers of general circulation.
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