Bill to restore Biak-na-Bato park size

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—A bill restoring the original 2,117 hectares of Biak-na-Bato National Park in Bulacan province and declaring it a protected area may help stop environmental degradation in the area.

The measure may also avert flash floods similar to the one that killed seven students last month and the one that swamped 11 villages at the height of Typhoon “Luis” on Sunday.

Congress has formed a technical working group to study House Bill No. 2713, which Bulacan Rep. Joselito Mendoza filed in September 2013. The measure has not moved since last year, as it awaits technical notes from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, a check by the Inquirer showed.

In his explanatory note, Mendoza said the Biak-na-Bato park should be preserved both as base of what was reckoned to be the first Philippine Republic in 1897 and as an important ecological area.

Proclamation No. 223, issued by Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon on Nov. 6, 1937, set the park’s area at 2,117 ha in Barangay (village) Sibul, San Miguel town, and Barangay Kalawakan, Doña Remedios Trinidad town, both straddling the Sierra Madre mountains.

Proclamation No. 2204, issued by the dead dictator Ferdinand Marcos, segregated 330.30 ha and opened it to exploration and mining. Proclamation No. 401, issued by President Corazon Aquino, reduced the park’s size to 659.44 ha.

At the centennial of the declaration of Philippine Independence in 1998, Republic Act No. 8546 declared the park a historical shrine and major tourist attraction.

A report from Mendoza’s office said legal and illegal mining activities in areas segregated from the park or in its buffer zones had damaged forests, causing the swelling of the Madlum River and flash floods in villages in San Miguel.

It also said the Constitution promotes the conservation and promotion of the country’s historical and cultural heritage.

Before the Aug. 19 drowning of seven students of Bulacan State University on a field trip, eight excursionists had drowned in the same area in 2004.

Mendoza’s bill seeks to prohibit all forms of mining or logging in the area. It also seeks to ban hunting animals or gathering plants or flowers. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon