NORZAGARAY, Philippines—Retired Chief Justice Reynato Puno has accepted a job helping protect the environment for a yearly salary of P1.
Puno, who championed the introduction of the Writ of Kalikasan into Philippine jurisprudence, toured the Ipo Dam watershed on Thursday as a legal consultant of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewage System. He was invited by MWSS Administrator Gerardo Esquivel to join the watershed overseer called Task Force Five Watersheds.
“Water management should be given utmost attention by the government. (This is a part of) national security. Negligence… could create an unimaginable impact [on] Metro Manila,” he said.
He added that the military should take a hand in protecting watersheds.
“All of us have a stake here. Time is running out. We in the legal profession have a very high regard to life and rights, and water is a primary right of everyone which should be protected. And, really, there is a vital need for the national government to step in as the major protector of our water security system and process.”
Puno’s role in the task force is to help coordinate how agencies interpret overlapping laws and jurisdictions concerning forest protection and management.
During a forum on the first week of February, Esquivel told people’s organizations that the environment group Bantay Kalikasan has relinquished to the national government the protection and management of the 6,600-hectare Ipo Dam watershed.
He said Bantay Kalikasan spent years fighting the rampant timber poaching operations inside the watershed that were undertaken by various armed groups.
On Thursday, Puno announced that the MWSS had forwarded its request for military assistance to Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin.
Glen Paul Flores, project manager of the Ipo Dam watershed, said 70 percent of the Ipo forests had been denuded.—Carmela Reyes-Estrope