Background of the Study

Tuna Landing in the Philippines and also there are many other species of Fish and Marine Creatures landed there every day of the year! Market 1 is the Tuna Landing and every day and is a very interesting sight to see, starting very early in the morning, the organized chaos begins as the port comes to life! The Tuna Boats bring in their catch, all these fish are hooked on hand lines so the catch is considered to be a sustainable method of catching fish even by Green Peace! The fish are offloaded manually and each fish is carried up to Market 1 on the shoulder of a laborer to the Weighing Scales, On many occasions, the fish weighs more than the person carrying it! Once the fish are weighed, they are laid out for sale where the would be licensed buyers come along and check the fish for freshness by taking small core samples of the meat with a special purpose made device! Once sold, the fish are moved into the area of the buyer where they are gutted and then put on ice if they are for export or transported directly to the Fish Factories for Preparation and Canning, to Local Markets for sale to the general public or transported on ice by truck to markets all over Mindanao!

There are always some creatures caught as a bi-catch such as Sharks, Sword Fish, Marlin and Moon Fish which is a very strange looking fish a bit like an Ocean Sun Fish! The bi-catch on many occasions is good for export and is shipped out along with the Tuna to locations mostly in the USA and Japan! The Sharks, minus their valuable fins are sold on the local markets as are the poorer quality of the other species! The Export fish is usually chilled down in ice water in order to make it as cold as possible so that it will survive the journey better to its final destination! The Heads, Tails, Jaw and Belly are removed and sold on for local consumption, the heads and tails are used in soup while the jaws and bellies are wonderful when barbecued! The main Car case is cleaned and packed and sealed in an air cargo box along with insulation and some Dry Ice! This whole operation is very fast and most of the export fish are sent out on the early morning PAL Flights to Manila and onward from their to their final destination! The Japanese are very proud and always say that they have the freshest fish in the world but this is not quite correct when it comes from Gen San as we beat them by a day for freshness!