“NGOs are not welcome in Panglao and we do not want them to tell us what to do and what is good for us,” fisherfolk in three Panglao villages declared angrily. After exposing the role of resort owners who agitated them to oppose the reclamation project, the fisherfolk are now turning their guns on NGOs whom they accuse of using them for their personal interest. “We have not met them and now they are making it appear as if they speak for us,” the fishermen said in Cebuano. In separate dialogues with the proponents of the reclamation project, the fishermen were one in saying that they have not met with NGO workers so they are wondering why they are taking part in the discussions on the project.

“Who gave them the authority to speak for us?” one fisherman asked. The residents in the three fishing villages were particularly angered by accusations made by NGO workers that they were bribed after they became receptive to the project. “Who gave them the right to accuse and insult us? They should be ashamed to say that!” the fishermen said. They accused NGOs of agitating villages against development projects for their own selfish ends. They are demanding that the NGOs report to them what happened with the foreign funding amounting to millions of pesos on the Bohol Marine Triangle which was supposed to benefit fishing villages including those in Panglao. The fishermen said the project was “good only in the newspaper” but did not bring any benefit to the people. “There is not one fisherman who can say that his life improved because of the project,” one fisherman remarked.

Picking up from where the first one left off, another said that on the contrary, NGO workers have grown rich with many of them owning expensive vehicles and frequently traveling abroad. “There is no change in the pattern of illegal fishing and the government inaction before and after the NGOs arrived here,” a fisherman in another village declared. The fisherman said the failure of the NGOs to uplift their livelihood has led them to conclude that they will decide for themselves. They said the NGO workers have no right to accuse the fishermen “because no farmer got rich because of the NGO”. In fact, the fishermen said that while they remain poor, NGO workers can afford to buy new cars, acquire expensive gadgets like laptops and attend conferences abroad. “It is clear that they are only using poor communities so they will get funding from their projects,” the fishermen said. They vowed to resist any NGO project in the three villages after the insult that they got. “After many years of NGO involvement in our community, we feel that they really do not want our lives to improve so that they will continue to get funding,” the added. The fishermen said that they believe the reclamation project offers them hope of a better life, “not the NGOs who are getting richer while we are getting poorer”.