Accreditation eyed for dive operators

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine Commission on Sports SCUBA Diving  aims to accredit all dive operators in the country in its hope to ensure the safety of diving enthusiasts, as well as protect the dive sites.

 “If you ask me how many divers we certify in one year? Honestly, we don’t know. That’s why we’re starting from scratch,” said PCSSD commissioner Benedict Reyes in an interview with the media.

The PCSSD yesterday wrapped up the series of public consultations at the Waterfront Hotel, Cebu City to tackle the renewal of regulations of scuba diving in the country.

Reyes said once the new implementing rules and regulations (IRR) is done, they hope to have all the dive operators accredited for regulatory purposes.

He said with this revised law, they hope to get important data from other dive accrediting organizations to know how many dive masters, instructors, and other personnel there are in their list. He said this is to avoid “colorum” operations as these could endanger the divers.

While there are only a few cases of death among divers, like three or four in a year, Reyes said this is still a chilling event considering that diving is still considered safest than vehicle driving.

Bends or decompression sickness is also a threat to divers with one case in every 10,000 divers, according to a study. This month, four cases were already reported in Mandaue City alone, said Reyes.

“We could interpret it, there are 40,000 divers already in November. But while tourism wise it is good, accident wise, di maganda,” he said.

Reyes explained that this is a problem considering that there are only six recompression chambers in the country; in Mandaue, Bohol, Quezon City, Palawan, Davao, and Anilao, Batangas. This is why Reyes said it is important that the industry is regulated according to the existing law governing it.

In the aspect of the dive sites, most of which, if not all, are marine protected areas.

Reyes said this may no longer be within the scope of the new IRR, but they deal with it through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of the Interior and Local Government and the local government units.

He said LGUs should only use the collected dive fees in the maintenance of their dive sites. He mentioned the Danajon Bank between Bohol, Cebu and Leyte being the only double barrier reef in Asia and one of the six in the world, but is not getting protection. He said Danajon Bank is “precious,” therefore it should get all the protection from illegal fishing.

PCSSD has been doing public consultations in areas like Palawan, Batangas, Mindanao and yesterday in Cebu to get comments from Scuba diving stakeholders on the new additions to the old IRR.

Reyes said they had to revise the old one as the diving industry has changed since it was crafted many years ago.

He said they are expecting to fully implement it by early next year. — (FREEMAN)