Fishing communities across the Philippines face dwindling hauls and disappearing marine life as El Niño-driven ocean warming disrupts the underwater food chain that fish depend on, the country’s top science official warned Saturday.
DOST Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. said warmer seas suppress the natural upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water from the ocean floor—starving shallow coastal waters of the food supply that sustains fish populations.
“‘Pag sobrang mainit po ‘yan, pini-prevent po niyan ‘yung pag-akyat ng mas malamig na tubig na may dala-dalang mga nutrients,” Solidum said in an interview on DZRH’s Special on Saturday on May 23. “Kaya ibig po sabihin, ‘yung mga kinakain ng isda sa mababaw na parte ay nababawasan.”
With coastal feeding grounds stripped of nutrients, Solidum said fish populations face effective starvation—pushing many species to migrate toward cooler, deeper waters and away from the fishing grounds that small-scale fishermen depend on for their livelihood.
“‘Yung mga isdang wala masyadong makain, minsan nagma-migrate ‘yan doon sa mas malamig na lugar,” he said, warning that the direct result is a decline in fish hauls—hitting hardest those fishermen who operate close to shore.
Solidum also flagged the risk of fish die-offs during sustained heat spikes, noting that fish in shallow coastal waters have little protection against extreme temperatures.
Beyond the disruption to marine life, he warned that El Niño conditions also raise the likelihood of stronger typhoons—a compounded threat for fishing villages already vulnerable to storms along the eastern seaboard.
Solidum made the warning with coastal communities squarely in mind, including those in typhoon-exposed villages in San Jose, Camarines Sur—towns that face the open sea toward Catanduanes and sit directly in the path of storms crossing from the Pacific.
He urged fishing communities to brace for reduced hauls and heightened storm risk as El Niño is forecast to intensify from a weak episode in June toward potentially very strong conditions by the last quarter of 2026.
