EDITORIAL – Saga of the catfish

A HEARTENING news development in Davao City over the week is the revival of the once moribund “hito” (catfish) industry in Los Amigos, a rustic barangay in Tugbok district.
A couple of years ago, owners of the hito ponds in the area were in misery and on the brink of bankruptcy over a disaster that befell them – a massive fishkill in their ponds that left them with nothing to harvest.
Some pond owners in desperate straits due to heavy-indebtedness to banks and government lending agencies found a scapegoat in banana plantations, particularly those doing aerial spraying. However, an investigation that took a while came out with the truth that the fishkill was a result of the mismanagement and bad practices of the pond owners and their managers.
All that should be behind them now. Lessons learned, industry players should move forward to piggyback on their current surge in production of 1.5 metric tons a day and find ways to get the most out of the unprecedented growth. 
Pond owners, with government’s all-out support, should now consider canning as a value-adding activity.
On the other hand, government and private capital should intensity the development of the place into an excellent destination for gourmet-loving tourists, its original lure. 
For instance, just for starters, how about finding new ways of preparing catfish for the dinner table that will be the delight of gourmets’ palates who will be asking for more of the same? Here is where Filipino ingenuity in the kitchen can be brought to play. It’s also called “creativity”.