Solon charged with water pollution

Representative Nicasio Aliping Jr.  PHOTO from www.congress.gov.ph

BAGUIO CITY—Rep. Nicasio Aliping Jr. is facing charges in the city’s Pollution Adjudication Board in connection with the alleged pollution of water sources of Baguio City and nearby communities, an official of  Baguio Water District (BWD) said on Friday.

In a complaint filed on June 26, BWD blamed an illegal road construction attributed to Aliping and three contractors for the erosion of excavated soil in three water springs and  BWD’s Amliang Dam, which serves 20 communities in Baguio and neighboring Tuba town in Benguet province.

Two of the springs can no longer be revived, Salvador Royeca, BWD general manager, said.

He said Aliping and the contractors, BLC Construction and Aggregates, Goldrich Construction and RUA Construction and Development Corp., violated the Clean Water Act of 2004 (Republic Act No. 9275) for “discharging, depositing or causing to be deposited material of any kind directly or indirectly into the water bodies or along the margins of any surface water … which could cause water pollution or impede natural flow in the water body.”

Aliping and the contractors are also facing a criminal complaint in the office of the Benguet prosecutor for violating forest protection laws.

The lawmaker had been implicated by foresters and employees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) when he asked a local official to facilitate his application for an excavation permit in connection with the building of a road inside the Mt. Santo Tomas watershed.

Based on official records, Aliping does not own any property at the Mt. Santo Tomas watershed.

Treasury and real property records of  Tuba municipal government showed that a 5-hectare area inside the watershed, where the 2.6-kilometer road was built, was registered as land claims of Felimon Coyupan and Rosalie Leistner, according to Carmelita Samonte, a staff member of the municipal assessor’s office.

But on Thursday, Coyupan’s daughter, Feling de Leon, said her father’s property had been sold to Aliping.

The lot Aliping supposedly bought inside the watershed had been settled as far back as 1958 by Coyupan, records showed. In 2004, Leistner bought 1,550 square meters of the 5-ha Coyupan land claim.

Leistner’s last entry for paying her tax declaration was in 2009, in the amount of P32.05, according to Josephine Bandala, Tuba revenue collection clerk.

When asked, De Leon said Aliping bought the land before her father died but the 2014 tax entry for Coyupan’s land claim showed that De Leon still paid taxes amounting to P779.04. Reports from Jhoanna Marie Buenaobra, Kimberlie Quitasol and Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon