Solon behind polluting road project

Representative Nicasio Aliping Jr. PHOTO from https://www.congress.gov.ph

BAGUIO CITY – Representative Nicasio Aliping Jr. has been linked to a road project that dumped soil on a waterway and contaminated a major water source of the Baguio Water District (BWD).

Aliping’s family owns a piece of property at Mt. Cabuyao near the Mt. Santo Tomas watershed area, to where the 2-kilometer road project supposedly leads, according to Inquirer sources.

The watershed straddles Baguio and Tuba town in Benguet province. It is also surrounded by vegetable gardens.

Last week, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) stopped the road project, which was apparently being overseen by Baguio-based contractors, after the agency discovered 761 damaged trees along the route, a DENR report said.

Paquito Moreno, DENR Cordillera regional director, said the road project had not secured an environmental compliance certificate or tree-cutting permits.

On June 2, the project was stopped by Oscar Cabayanan, Cordillera regional director of the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau.

“It appears that Congressman Aliping admitted responsibility [for] the ongoing earth-moving activities in the area under investigation,” the DENR report said.

It cited Aliping’s promise to Tuba Mayor Florencio Bentres, through a May 21 letter, that he was “undertaking and instituting measures to avoid further damage to the plants, trees and Dam 3 of the BWD.”

On Thursday, Aliping provided little details about the road project, saying he needed to be provided a copy of the DENR investigation report. He said, however, that he would comply with the DENR’s requirements and penalties and would help fix the problem.

The DENR report said an inspection team discovered “a new road construction measuring 1.5 km from Sitio Pongayan to Sitio Amliang, Barangay Poblacion … and 1.14 km from Sitio Pongayan to Sitio Bekel, Barangay Poblacion [both in Tuba].”

“Earth-moving activity caused by the ongoing construction [caused] heavy soil [to spill] … and may flow down to the tributaries at Sitio Amliang, Barangay Poblacion [in Tuba] when it rains, [affecting] the structures of BWD and further cascading downstream to Sitio Camp 6, Barangay Camp 4, [also in] Tuba,” it said.

The road ends at an area that is 50 meters away from Amliang Creek, and the volume of rock and soil that has eroded is a potential source of contamination downstream for Barangay Camp 6 in Baguio City, as well as Dam 3 of BWD, which supplies potable water to the city, the report said.

The team said they recorded 306 trees (composed of 293 Benguet pine and 13 alnus trees) and 455 saplings (415 Benguet pine and 40 alnus saplings) along the road construction site during an inspection from May 23 to 27.

The DENR report said “an undetermined number of trees, poles, saplings and natural regenerants along the road construction site have yet to be accounted (for) because these are believed to be buried or concealed by soil debris [that had been] dumped on the slopes.”