Lawmaker faces P50,000 fine for forest project

BAGUIO CITY—Baguio Rep. Nicasio Aliping Jr. is facing a P50,000 fine from the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) for developing a property in the Mount Santo Tomas watershed here without an environmental compliance certificate (ECC).

Aliping admitted at an EMB technical conference on Monday that excavation work had been undertaken at a 5-hectare lot that he bought inside the Mount Cabuyao section of the Mt. Santo Tomas watershed in Tuba town in Benguet province, Susan Nisperos-Nool, EMB Cordillera regional information officer, said during a news conference.

Nool said Aliping was being penalized for violating Presidential Decree No. 1586 (the law that enforces the Philippine Environmental Impact Statement program), which states that an ECC will be required for development projects inside critical areas.

She said Aliping bought the property from a family in Tuba.

Nool said the fine was not for a pollution complaint filed against Aliping by the Baguio Water District (BWD) in June.

Erosion from an illegal road project, spanning 2.5 kilometers at Mt. Cabuyao, had polluted a vital water source, and the BWD and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) have accused Aliping and three road contractors for excavating the mountain road that leads to the lawmaker’s lot.

Aliping was linked to the road project because he had applied for excavation permits in Tuba, which hosts Mt. Cabuyao.

But during the technical conference, Aliping said he had no part in building the mountain road, saying his application for excavation permits was meant for an ecotourism park he proposed to develop in Mt. Cabuyao.

Minutes of a Tuba council meeting in 2012 bared Aliping’s plans, when he outlined his intention for his property.

In a text message, Aliping said he had been granted time to present a position paper to the EMB regarding the BWD complaint.

During a forum on Saturday, a BWD official said damage to its Amliang water source at the watershed affected 4,176 households in Baguio City and Tuba.

Fernando Peria, chief of the BWD nonrevenue water management division, said the water district tapped the Amliang springs from June to December each year.

Citing data provided by Peria at the forum, Joseph Paul Alipio, director of Cordillera Conservation Trust, said the loss in forest value because of the illegal road project along this section of the watershed came up to P47 million a year.

“This represents only the direct value of the forest as a watershed for six months,” Alipio said. He said the forests “are factories that produce water.”

“In our current overpopulated, water-hungry country, every single remaining forest is a necessity to our economic growth and human survival,” he said.

On Tuesday, Alipio is leading 50 volunteers in planting trees along the excavated road at the watershed, in an attempt to “retake the road so it would no longer be used.”  Kimberlie Quitasol, with a report from Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon