MANILA, Philippines—It looks like it is being built for people who want to commune with nature, but some environmentalists are raising a howl.

“It’s horrible. It’s horrific,” Gina Lopez, managing director of the ABS-CBN Foundation, which oversees Bantay Kalikasan [Nature Watch], said in a phone interview Friday.

“Foreigners should respect our environmental laws when they come here.”

Lopez was referring to the ongoing construction of two buildings by a Korean investor right inside the lush rainforest of the Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales province, northwest of Manila.

“How can you do that? I’m sure that’s not private property. I feel very bad about it,” Lopez said.

Concerned individuals have called the Inquirer’s attention to the two structures being constructed by the South Korean shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction (HHIC) Ltd.

The company denied reports that the two buildings were commercial hotels, saying these were residential condominiums intended for its staff.

“These are going to serve as quarters for our Korean staff and, in the future for some Filipino employees,” Shim Jong Sup, HHIC-Philippines president, said by phone.

The first building is 10-story-high and the other is 20-story-tall.

“We want to provide accommodations for our staff,” Shim added, ruling out reports that HHIC had ventured into a hotel project.

The units are designed for Korean expatriates working for Hanjin who have families or who are bachelors, he said.

Shim could not immediately say how much the construction of the condominiums would cost, saying only that “we spent a lot of money to make the structure very strong against earthquake.”

Administrator Armand Arreza of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), which runs the free port zone, estimated the costs of the housing project at $20 million.

‘No environmental violation’

Shim said the construction of the buildings near the lush forests of Subic, a former US naval base, did not violate any environmental regulations.

“We got an ECC [environmental compliance certificate],” he said. It was obtained from the SBMA ecology department.

Amethyia de la Llana-Kovak, SBMA ecology department chief, confirmed the issuance of an ECC last year to the housing project.

Regarding the location, she said the structures were being constructed near the “built-up area” of the Subic forests.

In the protected area management plan of the SBMA, the built-up areas—those allowed for development activities—are marked in pink, De la Llana-Kovak said.

She said the marking indicated that the former tenants, the United States Navy, had previous uses for those areas within the forests.

The HHIC site is near a naval magazine, De la Llana-Kovak said.

She said the project cost was not indicated in the company’s application for an ECC.

The SBMA business development department said the condominiums were a “subsequent” project to Hanjin’s $1.65-billion investment at the free port.

The housing project came more than a year after the HHIC went full-blast in its shipbuilding operation in late 2006, it was learned.

The shipyard, off the Redondo Bay in Subic, Zambales, employs more than 10,000 workers.

Koreans account for about 15 percent of that labor force, the Inquirer learned.

At least seven Filipino workers have died in separate incidents at the shipyard since December 2007 due to what officials said was lack of safety measures at the sites.

Ecological impact

ABS-CBN Foundation’s Lopez expressed concern at the ecological impact of building the condominiums in the Subic rainforest.

“Seventy-five percent of our rainforest has disappeared because nobody knew what was happening. This same thing is happening here,” Lopez said.

“That’s what they wanted to do with La Mesa. Because of high public awareness, this was stopped.”

Bantay Kalikasan, an environmental arm of ABS-CBN Foundation, fiercely fought against the construction of housing projects for executives and former employees of the Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) in the La Mesa watershed in Quezon City.

Lopez said the use of the land and the issuance of environmental compliance certificate by local authorities to the Korean company for the right to build the structures should be the subject of an inquiry.

“Who issued the ECC? Who sold the land? How did that happen?” she said.