Senators slam DENR for negligence in preserving protected areas

TOURIST MAGNET Tourists pose for a photo of the Chocolate Hills, the top natural attraction in Bohol, in this January 2023 photo. LEO UDTOHAN

MANILA, Philippines — Senators on Wednesday expressed disappointment over what they claimed was apparent negligence on the part of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to preserve the country’s protected areas, including the Chocolate Hills National Monument in the Visayas and Mt. Apo Natural Park in Mindanao.

During the Senate hearing on the defacement and exploitation of the protected areas, senators questioned DENR officials on why the construction of illegal structures was allowed within the protected areas.

READ: Chocolate Hills need rehab — DENR chief

‘Remiss in their duty’

Sen. Cynthia Villar, chair of the committee on environment, natural resources and climate change, said the regional offices of the DENR seemed to be “remiss in their duty,” adding that these appear to be among the “weak links” in the department’s protection mechanisms.

This came after the senators learned that the DENR regional office, as a member of the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB), was responsible for drafting the agenda of the meetings, which eventually led to the approval of the construction of structures within the vicinity of the Chocolate Hills.

“While the Philippine government has established a robust framework of policies, laws and regulations for the protection of our protected areas, there appears to be a deficiency in their implementation,” Villar lamented.

The Senate inquiry was prompted by the controversial construction of illegal and informal structures or resorts, including Captain’s Peak Garden and Resort in Sagbayan town, where swimming pools, slides and cottages were built too close to the mounds of Chocolate Hills.

Villar asked who authorized the issuance of permits that the structures supposedly have.

“For the PAMB clearance it was the PAMB. For the ECC (environmental compliance certificate), it was the [Environmental Management Bureau],” said Mercedes Dumagan, DENR regional executive director (officer in charge) in Davao.

Not in protected areas

Sen. Raffy Tulfo maintained that structures without ECCs should not have been built in protected areas.

“In the first place, you should not have allowed these structures to be built. We have been repeating that there must be a permit first before the structure. What happened here was the structure was built first before the permit, then the permit is still in process,” he said.

All programs, projects and activities to be carried out in a protected area must be cleared by the PAMB, according to the law.

The PAMB clearance for Captain’s Peak Garden and Resort was reportedly issued during the time of former DENR regional executive in Central Visayas Gilbert Gonzales, who is now an assistant secretary in the agency.

READ: DENR: Closure order vs resort near Chocolate Hills issued Sept. 2023

Being the DENR regional executive director at that time, Gonzales was chair of the PAMB.

However, Gonzales, who was at the hearing, said he did not attend a PAMB meeting where a resolution was issued allowing the construction of a resort in Chocolate Hills because he was on official travel in Baguio City.

Villar asked why Gonzales allowed the PAMB meeting to push through despite his absence and let the members of the board, said to be composed mostly of barangay captains, decide on a very important issue.

Gonzales said this was a “common procedure” in the PAMB, but this was refuted by Villar.

Gonzales explained that PAMB Resolution No. 1 was issued in February 2018 and cited Presidential Proclamation No. 333, which apparently declared the flat lands of Chocolate Hills as multiple-use zones and alienable and disposable lands.

But Villar contradicted Gonzales and said that the proclamation was meant to allow farmers to use the land and not to establish businesses in the protected area.

Villar also stressed that having a land title in a legislated protected area does not grant the owner absolute control over the property.

“[T]here’s nothing wrong with people planting in the protected area but what you did was establish resorts and businesses in the protected area. That’s a different story altogether,”said Villar.

“Even if there is a title, if you are a protected area, you are not supposed to destroy the protected area,” she added.

Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda echoed Villar’s views, stressing that under the said law, “consideration shall be given to the intended protected areas for conservation and biodiversity as well as the objectives for protected areas to keep human habitation and environmental conservation in harmony.”