The Philippines is an archipelago that consists of 7,641 islands with a total land area of 301,000 km 2. The total area of marine waters including EEZ is 2,200,000 km 2 and the total length of its coastlines is 36,289 km. The country’s shelf and coral reef areas cover 18.46 million ha and 2.7 million ha, respectively ( Figure 1) (BFAR, 2011).