By Vanne Elaine Terrazola
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will not anymore permit the 944-hectare reclamation project in Bacoor, Cavite following the opposition by Senator Cynthia Villar.
During the deliberation of the Senate finance subcommittee B on the DENR’s P25.5-billion proposed 2020 budget, Villar questioned environment officials for supposedly entertaining plans to reclaim the 944-hectare area in Bacoor, which, she lamented, was close to the protected Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park.
The project, she said, could endanger the wetland.
The senator, who also chairs the Senate environment and natural resources committee, worked for the declaration of the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park as a protected area under the Republic Act 11038 which expanded the National Integrated Protected Areas System. It was signed into law June last year.
At the hearing, she also recalled filing petitions before the Supreme Court to stop reclamation projects that could affect the park.
“You want me to go file a petition for Writ of Kalikasan, and you want me to do this again, after spending almost 10 years to stop reclamation, now you are going to do another reclamation in front of us?”
Villar said she was convinced by former Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson to prevent the said Bacoor reclamation plan.
Singson, she said, warned that the project will cause flooding in her bailiwick Las Piñas City.
“Sabi niya sa akin ‘Huwag mong ipare–reclaim ‘yan kasi babaha kayo ng eight meters sa Las Piñas…Alam mo ba ‘yong eight meters? That’s [equal to a] three-storey [building]. Walang bahay sa Las Piñas na three-storey, eh di lahat kami, pati ako, ang bahay ko one-storey, ilulubog mo ako (No house in Las Piñas City exceeds three-story, now you will submerge us, including me, in floods)?”
Villar noted how reclamation projects caused the spike in land values, citing for instance the high property prices within the reclaimed Manila Bay area.
“Ibig sabihin ‘yong mga mayayaman, payayamanin mo at ilulubog mo kaming lahat na mahihirap? Hindi naman yata tama ‘yon (You mean you will make the rich richer and you will drown the poor in floods? That is not right),” said the richest member of the Senate.
“The rich people should take care of the poor people. It’s not the poor people suffering to make people rich. Tigilan niyo ‘yon (Stop that project)…Kawawa naman ‘yong mga kababayan namin (Our people in Las Piñas would affected),” she told the DENR officials.
Metodio Turbella, director of the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau, said the agency will “immediately” cancel the reclamation project.
“We’ll take note of that. In fact, I talked to the Undersecretary [Jonas] Leones, including the good [DENR] secretary here, to immediatly cancel that schedule for that purpose,” Turbella said.
DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu was present in the Senate committee hearing.
The local government of Bacoor has partnered with Frabelle Fishing Corp. and Aboitiz for the 944-hectare reclamation project. The plan was among the 22 Manila Bay reclamation projects being processed by the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA).
Urban poor and fishermen’s groups have also opposed the project.
The DENR said developers should secure area and environmental clearances before reclamation projects are approved by the PRA.
Villar, as finance subcommittee B chair, was tasked to defend the DENR’s proposed budget for next year.
https://news.mb.com.ph/2019/09/27/denr-stops-944-hectare-reclamation-project-in-bacoor/
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