Cebu City turns to SC in bid to revive rivers

CLEARING OPERATION Workers from the Cebu City government, using heavy equipment, start clearing the banks of Kinalumsan River of illegal structures and settlers. —PHOTO COURTESY OF CEBU CITY COUNCILOR JERRY GUARDO

CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines — Local officials are filing a petition in the Supreme Court for the issuance of a writ of kalikasan in a bid to clear the city’s riverbanks of informal settlers and commercial establishments that encroached on the 3-meter easement zone of waterways.

Lawyer Gerardo Carillo, chair of the Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said the writ of kalikasan would also compel national government agencies to act and do their jobs in making sure the rivers were free from any obstructions.

“We have to rehabilitate our rivers. But we cannot do that if we don’t clear the 3-meter easement. We wanted to restore the rivers,” Carillo said on Tuesday.

The issuance of a writ of kalikasan, he said, would provide more teeth to the Water Code of the Philippines (Presidential Decree No. 1067) which prohibits structures from encroaching on the rivers’ easement zone.

Carillo didn’t say when the city government’s representatives would file the petition, but he noted that a draft would be finished this week and would be submitted for review to Mayor Michael Rama.

Under the Supreme Court’s Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases, the writ of kalikasan is a remedy available “on behalf of persons whose constitutional right to a balanced and healthful ecology is violated…, (and which) involves environmental damage of such magnitude as to prejudice the life, health, or property of inhabitants.”

Demolition

Carillo said between 14,000 and 18,000 structures along Cebu City’s rivers needed to be demolished. So far, however, the city has given notices of eviction to only 2,000 households and establishments.

Those who refuse to leave or remove the structures within the river’s easement will be included in the case, he said.

According to the Environmental Management Bureau, all seven major rivers in Cebu City — Guadalupe, Kinalumsan, Mahiga, Lahug, Estero de Parian, Bulacao, and Butuanon — are already “dead” since they have ceased to perform their ecological functions, including its inability to sustain any form of life, such as fish and aquatic plants.

The city government has advised affected families and business owners to demolish their homes or establishments on their own so they can save their belongings.

Informal settlers will be transferred to medium-rise condominium buildings donated by a private firm at the South Road Properties. They will also receive P35,000 from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Cebu Port Authority, and the DPWH will also be included in the case for failing to stop residents and owners of commercial establishments from constructing structures that encroached on the rivers’ easement zones.

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