Summary Long‐term, excessive harvesting of juvenile fish could lead to significant decline in their settlement strength. In the Philippines, the exploitation of siganid juveniles forms an important traditional fishery but no assessment of the exploitation status of such fishery had been made. The present study is a comprehensive assessment of the siganid juvenile fishery caught by bagnet in Lagonoy Gulf (Southeastern Luzon) by analyzing the temporal trend of their catch and effort statistics. Seven species of siganid juveniles composed the catch, which was dominated by Siganus canaliculatus (78%), S. spinus (8%) and S. argenteus (3%). Total catch 2001 through 2004 was 175 tonnes (t), 154 t, 130 t and 65 t, respectively. The total catch as well as the catch‐per‐unit‐effort declined steeply in these 4 years. Juvenile occurrences or ‘runs’ were observed throughout the year except in some months in the later quarters of 2003 and 2004. Catches for all 4 years were always highest in April and May, occurring on or about the new moon mostly at the Albay East Coast. Overfishing must be stopped in order to prevent the collapse of this resource.

The study presents a first report on the validation of otolith increment in the golden-spotted rabbitfish Siganus guttatus. The formation of daily sagittal growth increments in S. guttatus was validated using hatchery-reared larvae and juveniles collected from day of hatching to day 35. Mean increments were 5.6, 13.1, 24.5 and 34.8 for the 7, 15, 25 and 35 day-old fish, respectively. The results demonstrated that sagittal increments were formed daily and thus can be used to determine the age in days of the species.

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Juveniles of the spiny siganid Siganus spinus were sampled from three sources in April, May and June 2008 for a study of its early life-history through otolith microstructure analysis. Specimens were obtained from bagnet catches in off-reef sites and seine nets in seagrass beds operating in Lagonoy Gulf, Philippines, and from the guts of skipjack tuna Katsuwonus pelamis caught by hand-line in an offshore area about 72 km east of the mouth of the gulf. The core, hatch ring, first feeding rings, and settlement increment of spiny siganid were identified and their widths measured. Mean daily otolith ages were 20.6, 22.1 and 21.7 of specimens from the gut, off-reef site and seagrass bed, respectively. Sagittae of the youngest (17-, 18-and 19-day-old) specimens from the tuna gut do not have settlement marks. Planktonic larval duration is 17 days. Most settlement (59%) occurred at the 20th increment on the evidence of its highest reduction in width and lessening of opacity. During the settlement process the juveniles swim from the fringing coral reefs to the seaweed beds then finally to the seagrass beds, wherein settlement volume is highest on or about the new moon date. The short, pelagic larval duration and restricted settlement timed on or 1-2 days near the new moon are integral elements in the settlement strategy of the fish.

School feeding (SF) has long been a welfare scheme adopted in the Philippines but there are very limited empirical studies that assessed its effectiveness. The nutrition-cognition nexus needs to be examined especially that regular SF program has been institutionalized recently by the government. From a set of socioeconomic factors and anthropometric measures, the present study determined which of them are significantly associated with the composite final grade of pupils. All recipients (N=80 malnourished primary schoolchildren were served lunch) of the "Busog-Lusog-Talino" ("Full-Healthy-Bright") School Feeding Program in San Carlos Elementary School in southern Bicol (Philippines) for two school years were participants to the study. Pearson correlation analysis revealed that parents' education and pupils' concurrent body mass index (BMI) are positive explanatory factors correlated with the final grade. Differing from many studies where mother's education had commonly been a dominant and only parent gender significant factor to pupils' academic achievement, the study revealed that under circumstances of poor family economic status the education of fathers had higher association than mothers'. Concurrent BMI (i.e., measured while the school feeding was implemented) is significantly linked to pupils' grades providing evidence for the need in sustaining good nutrition from school to the home. Schoolchildren under varying low levels of nutritional status and with low parents' education are predisposed to low academic performance. Implications of the findings to improving school feeding monitoring were elucidated.