A tuna consolidation and marketing enterprise worth 242.7 million pesos is set to benefit 324 fisherfolk households in Bislig City, part of a larger 368.2-million-peso investment the Department of Agriculture is rolling out across Caraga's fishing communities.

The project was approved by the Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) Regional Project Advisory Board on October 4, and was announced publicly by DA-Caraga Regional Executive Director Arlan Mangelen during a press briefing in Butuan City on November 10, 2025. It will be implemented under the PRDP's Investments in Rural Enterprises and Agriculture and Fisheries Productivity (I-REAP) component, funded through the PRDP Scale-Up phase.

The Mangagoy Farmers Fisherfolk and Community Multi-Purpose Cooperative (MAFFISCO-MPC) will run the enterprise once complete. Cold storage facilities for the project are already under construction, according to DA-Caraga.

"These enterprise development subprojects will improve the lives of our fisherfolk while also securing the region's food supply chain," Mangelen said at the briefing.

What the project covers

The Bislig enterprise is officially called the Tuna Consolidation and Marketing with Cold Chain Facilities project. Cold chain infrastructure, which includes proper cold storage and ice-making capacity, addresses one of the biggest limitations facing small-scale tuna fisherfolk: the inability to preserve their catch long enough to reach better markets or process it into higher-value products before it spoils.

MAFFISCO is not new to this kind of support. The Bislig-based cooperative, which produces and markets fresh-frozen and bottled tuna products under the Department of Trade and Industry's Shared Service Facilities program, previously received an ice crusher and cold storage equipment worth more than 2 million pesos. The new PRDP-funded project represents a far larger scale-up of that existing cold chain capacity, aimed at consolidating catch from more fisherfolk and opening up broader marketing channels for Bislig-caught tuna.

Part of a regional push

The Bislig project is one of three enterprise subprojects DA-Caraga announced together, all targeting fisherfolk in Surigao del Sur and Surigao del Norte. The other two are a 38-million-peso seaweed tissue culture laboratory in Hinatuan, benefiting 107 families, and an 87.6-million-peso bangus (milkfish) processing and marketing enterprise in Dapa, Siargao, supporting 76 households. Combined, the three subprojects are expected to benefit 507 fisherfolk households across the region.

The PRDP is a Department of Agriculture program, co-funded with the World Bank, that has been supporting rural infrastructure and enterprise development in agriculture and fisheries communities across the Philippines since 2014. Its current expansion phase, PRDP Scale-Up, is funding a new round of enterprise projects nationwide, with the Caraga region's fisherfolk cooperatives among the beneficiaries.

For Bislig, where tuna fishing already anchors a significant share of the local economy around Mangagoy, the new cold chain facilities are intended to let fisherfolk hold on to more of the value of their catch instead of selling fresh tuna at lower prices immediately after it is landed. City officials have separately pursued a related fish port project for the area, with President Marcos Jr. personally visiting Bislig in May to validate the site for a proposed Bislig City Fish Port, a step that typically precedes funding approval for major port infrastructure.

No completion date for the MAFFISCO cold chain facilities has been publicly announced. Bislig Today will report on further updates as the project progresses.