‘Buyad’ of Halian: Beyond tradition and culture, a lifeline for Siargao islanders

BUTUAN, Philippines – Siargao Island in the province of Surigao del Norte is known for its world-class surf breaks, amazing white sand beaches, adventure spots, and crystal-clear turquoise waters.

But among its small island villages is a place where locals produce an ocean bounty that has been a staple appetizer for the Filipino palate: a cultural dish for the masses known as buyad. 

The tradition of drying fish is a preservation technique popular among Asian countries. In different regions in the Philippines alone, dried fish is known by different names, such as daing, tuyô, bilad, or buwad. In the local Surigaonon language, buyad is a term that describes the process of drying.

“Here in Halian, the tradition of drying fish has been passed down from one generation to the next, and it has been one of the main sources of livelihood for our village, with around 80% of the population of our small island earning their living from drying fish,” said village council member Elsa Tampos, who buys most of the dried fish in the island and sells it in Surigao City and other parts of the province.  

An island that was nearly flattened by Typhoon Odette (Rai) in 2021, Halian is situated in the middle of the channel separating the islands of Siargao and Dinagat. It is part of the town of Del Carmen, one of the nine municipalities on Siargao Island.

Unlike other areas in Siargao, Halian’s preferred species for dried fish is the Sweetlip emperor or Trumpet emperor (Lethrinus miniatus), also known as katambak — although local islanders in Surigao del Norte and nearby Dinagat call it jijing.

Tampos explained that in most of the islands or coastal areas where the fish harvest is abundant, like in Halian, preserving excess fish catch like the jijing is a much-needed tradition as it helps families store food for times when stormy weather and rough sea conditions limit their ability to venture out into the open ocean. It has also become the island’s most sought-after source of income.  

According to Tampos, in a single month, the island produces around 500 to 1,000 kilos of dried jijing, which sells at around P320 a kilo as the products need to be transported by boat to markets in Surigao City and other parts of Surigao del Norte. 

“And since we don’t have electricity on the island for refrigeration or adequate means for ice storage, most of the fish catch will get spoiled and wasted if we don’t dry them. And since [this] is a sought-after appetizer or a main dish for some families, this gives us, here [on] the island, a means to earn,” added Tampos.

Elma Dupeño, officer-in-charge of the post-harvest and marketing section of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) in Caraga, pointed out that the island of Halian, despite its small size, is the top producer of dried fish throughout Siargao Island.

“This small island’s dried jijing production is the largest in Siargao, and it might even be for the entire province of Surigao del Norte. We are now looking into finding better avenues for their products to reach out to linked markets, and we are also looking towards training on how we can give added value to this traditional Filipino treat,” Dupeño said.  

How dried jijing helped Halian during tough times 

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as sea routes were closed, the village had several kilos of unsold jijing dried fish that were stored, and some were about to be damaged as they could not sell their commodities to mainland Surigao del Norte.

“The local government unit with a nongovernment organization purchased almost their entire stock and opened a way to sell and trade the product within the communities in Siargao Island. This gave Halian a much-needed breather and revenue at [a] time when people were getting desperate,” Tampos said.  

Some communities traded the dried fish from the island with other products such as rice, canned goods, and other essentials.

Right after Typhoon Odette destroyed all of the fishing boats on the island and flattened homes, it was the stock-dried fish, and some canned goods, that helped provide food for the islanders when they were cut off for several days without help from the rest of Siargao.     

Tough times, rough weather

Roger Alvarez, a 58-year-old fisherman, father to eight children, and resident of Halian, explained that while drying jijing is their main source of livelihood, the increasing cost of catching the fish is making it more difficult to profit.

“We spend about P2,000 on each fishing trip; this covers our fuel, the bait that we put in our trap — which is a mix of squid and a small fish known here as hawol-hawol — and the P500 fee we pay our labor assistant, who comes with us in our trip to help in putting the traps in the water and to bring them in the boat,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez calls each of their trips an open sea gambling as the amount of catch they get is not what it used to be, explaining that the high fuel price has made it much harder to earn. 

“Compared to what we get from our traps years ago, it is now smaller in quantity; there are times that we might harvest a lot, but the number of fish now is lesser compared to even before the pandemic. What makes it worse is that we are reliant on fuel to reach our fishing spots and the prices [have] risen so many times over the past few months,” Alvarez said.

A fishing boat in Halian usually carries 61 fish traps known to locals as pangal, a metal wire interwoven to form a rectangular cage, where they place their traps of squid and spotted sardines.

“We usually start our fishing trip at around 4 in the morning and return to the island at around 3 in the afternoon. In a single day, we drop and recover our traps three times, and sometimes, we get lucky and get 1,000 fish that would roughly weigh around 30 kilos, but get lighter to around 20 kilos after drying,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez said that their added burden is that the frequency of storms and unpredictable rough sea conditions have made it harder for them to go out and catch fish.

“The number of times that we are warned not to go out and fish because of bad weather has drastically increased. The harsh sea conditions during habagat that we are used to are dwarfed by what we have experienced now in terms of the frequency and how severe it gets, making life for us much harder,” he added.

The threat of liba-liba

Pedro*, a fisherman on the island, expressed his frustration because aside from bad weather, the increase in fuel cost, and the decrease in fish harvest, commercial fishing trawlers known as liba-liba have made it even harder for them to make a living.

“The liba-liba will just pass by the area where we placed our pangal and just decimate the area as they will drag our traps into the side of their boats. The painful part is that they will just cut the ropes that connect them to the floaters and just throw our pangal,” Pedro said. 

Another fisherman said commercial fishing vessels would just ram across the municipal waters like they own the ocean, without concern for small fisherfolk. Under the Philippine Fisheries Code, municipal fisherfolk have exclusive access to their 15-kilometer municipal waters.

Tampos, who used to be the island village chief, confirmed this problem, calling it a recurring threat to the fisherfolk not only on Halian Island, but also in other nearby fishing communities.

Gina Mozo Barquilla, the municipal environment and natural resource officer of Del Carmen, pointed out that large commercial fishing boats have been a huge concern and have caused problems for their fisherfolk for the past months.

“As a small municipality, there is only so little that we can do as our smaller boats are no match to the large fishing vessels that they have. The sad part is that they are sometimes armed, so we are helpless during the times that we try to pursue them,” Barquilla said. 

Barquilla explained that it takes time for the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) or the Philippine National Police (PNP) Maritime boats to get to the area. When authorities do get to the area, the commercial fishing boats would have already rushed too far out into the sea for them to be caught. 

In 2019, Del Carmen Mayor Alfredo Matugas Coro II requested the BFAR, PCG, or PNP Maritime unit to station a reliable fast boat on one of the town’s islands for a quicker response should commercial fishing boats be spotted along the municipal waters.

“We’ve seen this in the past — the illegal commercial fishers in our municipal waters discriminately operate within our municipal waters with impunity. They are armed and dangerous, which is beyond the capability and capacity of the town and our Bantay Dagat team to go after,” Coro said. – Rappler.com

*The name was changed upon the interviewee’s request.

Erwin Mascariñas is a freelance writer, photojournalist, and videographer based in Butuan City. He is also an Aries Rufo Journalism Fellow of Rappler for 2024.