The Regulation of Scuba Diving in the Philippines
The Philippines are a country with amazing scuba diving, especially when it comes to rare and small critters like nudibranchs, unusual scorpionfishes, gobies, mandarin fish and the likes. The purpose of this blog post is to inform local divers, dive shop owners and anyone else who is interested on the legalities of scuba in the Philippines.
Many thanks to my friend and Anilao scuba ace Danny Ocampo for input for this blog post! Any glitches and mistakes are of course still my fault, and if you are a legal scholar and notice a mistake in this blog post, please let me know, I will correct the information and credit you.
National Level
Scuba diving is regulated by the Philippine Commission on Sports Scuba Diving (PCSSD) on a national level. Dive shops can voluntarily register with the PCSSD, and, in their own words “The Commission is expressly directed to formulate and implement programs on marine conservation, particularly those areas of high touristic value.”.
I have had excellent interactions with the PCSSD, among other things I attended a hyperbaric medicine seminar organized by them. The PCSSD aims to raise the level of scuba in the Philippines in general, and generally does not deal with individual dive sites and local issues.
Local Level
Municipalities, also called Local Government Units (LGUs) regulate municipal waters and activities therein. They can regulate scuba diving to some extent. Since LGUs are in charge of municipal waters they can impose fees (environment and dive fees) but they need to have an ordinance and conduct consultations prior to issuing the ordinance.
The two relevant laws are Republic Act 7160, and, to some degree the Fisheries Code RA 10654. RA7160 does not explicitly mention scuba diving, but it is quite clear that municipal waters are solely the responsibility of LGUs/municipalities (not the provinces’, and not of the smaller administrative unit, the barangay). Some of the relevant wording is:
.. enforcement of fishery laws in municipal waters including the conservation of mangroves …
Municipalities shall have the exclusive authority to grant fishery privileges in the municipal waters and impose rentals, fees or charges therefor in accordance with the provisions of this section.
An excellent example of this is the municipality of Dauin, which has established a network of marine protected areas (MPAs), an ocean patrol (“bantay dagat”) to enforce these no-take MPAs, and collects environmental fees from divers for their efforts.
I hope this information was useful. A related post deals with the legalities of shark protection in the Philippines:
