Eastern Visayas’ fishery production in the first quarter of 2025 was recorded at 21,787 metric tons (MT), lower by 8.9 percent compared with the 23,905 MT production of the same quarter in 2024. This was brought about by the decreases in the production of municipal and aquaculture fisheries at 14.7 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively. On the other hand, commercial fisheries posted an increase in production by 6.2 percent recorded at 5,604 MT during the first quarter of 2025 from 5,276 MT in the same quarter of 2024 (Figure 1).

In the first quarter of 2025, Eastern Visayas ranked fourth among the regions with the lowest fishery production (Table 1).      

SAMAR RECORDS THE HIGHEST VOLUME OF FISH PRODUCTION AT 8,940.09 MT

Among provinces, Samar recorded the highest volume of fishery production at 8,940.09 MT in the first quarter of 2025, comprising 41.0 percent of the region’s total production. Leyte ranked second with 5,301.19 MT fisheries production in the same period, accounting for 24.3 percent of the regional total production. Eastern Samar followed with 2,591.34 MT production, contributing 11.9 percent of the region’s total fishery production. Northern Samar and Southern Leyte fisheries production followed at 2,178.56 MT (10.0%) and 1,926.19 MT (8.8%), respectively. Biliran, meanwhile, had the lowest volume of production at 849.87 MT, which comprised 3.9 percent of the total fishery production in the first quarter of 2025 (Figure 2 and Table 2).

Municipal fishing production decreased by 14.7 percent from 16,482.88 MT in the first quarter of 2024 to 14,057.45 MT in the same quarter of 2025. The highest decline in production was noted in Biliran by 47.5 percent from 1,108.94 MT in the first quarter of 2024 to 582.31 MT in the same quarter of 2025. Eastern Samar’s decline in municipal fishing followed at 43.8 percent from 2,953.85 MT in the first quarter of 2024 to 1,661.50 MT in the same quarter of 2025. Leyte and Northern Samar also posted declines in their production at 24.0 percent and 18.2 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Samar and Southern Leyte posted increases in production. On the other hand, Samar posted an increase of 11.5 percent with 4,375.43 MT of production in the first quarter of 2025 from the 3,923.86 MT of production in the same quarter of 2024. Southern Leyte posted the highest increase by 46.1 percent, 1,817.87 MT of production in the first quarter of 2025 from 1,243.85 MT in the same quarter of 2024 (Table 2).

Aquaculture slightly went down by 0.9 percent from 2,145.55 MT in the first quarter of 2024 to 2,125.64 MT in the same quarter of 2025. Decline in production was noted in Leyte by 54.7 percent from 981.56 MT in the first quarter of 2024 to 444.68 MT in the same quarter of 2025. The rest of the provinces posted increases in aquaculture production. Biliran’s production grew 462.3 percent, making it the highest increase in aquaculture production (Table 2).

Substantial increase of freshwater cage production by 1,898.9 percent was pulled down by the decreases in production of oyster farm by 75.5 percent, marine cage by 74.7 percent, brackishwater pen by 26.0 percent and freshwater fishpond by  
8.2 percent (Table 4).

SGD. WILMA A. PERANTE 
Regional Director