VOLUME 6 NUMBER 2 (July to December 2013)

by Altair B. Agmata, Angelli Marie Jacynth M. Asis,and Mudjekeewis D. Santos*

Genetic Fingerprinting Laboratory, National Fisheries Research and Development Institute,101 Mother Ignacia St., Quezon City, 1103 Philippines

In the Philippines, juvenile/fry fisheries have always beenan important industry. But, despite the benefits thesefisheries can provide, they suffer from lack of propermanagement. The "padas" is one of the highly sought aftersiganid fry resource, especially in Northern Luzon.However, the establishment of the true identity of "padas" hasnot been done and, consequently, the possibility of appropriatemanagement action has been limited. Here, where we used DNAbarcoding, we report that "padas" from a fermented fish paste"Cristal Sky Bagoong" bought from Pozorrubio, Pangasinan iscomposed of at least two species of Siganus, namely S.fuscescens and S. spinus. This information is crucial in raisingawareness of which specific resources should be targeted by thefisheries industry and it provides an initiative towards evokingproper management efforts for the sustainability of juvenilefisheries. We also demonstrate that DNA barcoding is a powerfultool in identifying fish species even in fermented form.