In the Philippines, Fisheries Registration and Licensing (FRL) is embodied in national fisheries laws and local (municipal/city) ordinances. The municipality of Bani in the Province of Pangasinan considers FRL as a feasible strategy to support the sustainable use of its municipal fisheries resources. Spearheaded by the Office of the Municipal Agriculturist (OMAg), Bani initially implemented an FRL system at the municipal level. There was very low compliance under this system primarily because fisher folk from far-flung villages were unable to afford the high transportation costs of going to the town center to register. In response, the local government of Bani devolved fisheries registration to the village level. Through Executive Order #03 enacted by the Municipal Mayor in 2006, village officials were mobilized to implement FRL systems in their jurisdictions. To build their capability to undertake such, they were trained by the OMAg with the assistance of the Sagip Lingayen Gulf Project. Based on the cost-benefit analysis, devolving FRL to the village level has decreased implementation cost and has also shortened the FRL cycle. Compliance rates from 2003 to 2007 revealed that the devolved system has also been effective in increasing the number of registrants. The devolved system is also credited with having facilitated easy and more reliable monitoring of fishing activities given the proximity of village enforcers to fisher folk. Policy-wise, more effective monitoring resulted in more accurate, valid and timely data inputting into the municipality's sustainable fisheries regulation and management decision support system. To date, not all coastal municipalities/cities in the country are implementing an FRL system, despite its crucial role in sustainable coastal governance and in conferring priority rights to municipal fisheries resources to local fisher folk. Given its merits, the Bani experience in devolving FRL could serve as a model that may be replicated in other areas in the Philippines with the same geographic configuration.