Court order stops quarrying in Mt. Polis

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—A mountain straddling the provinces of Ifugao and Mountain Province has been shielded with a temporary environment protection order (Tepo) against unregulated quarrying there.

Ifugao Regional Trial Court Judge Ester Piscoso-Flor granted the Nov. 12 petition of Bishop Valentin Dimoc of the Vicariate of Lagawe (Ifugao) and Bontoc (Mountain Province). The Tepo stopped illegal quarrying operations in sections of a road through Mt. Polis that links Ifugao and Mountain Province.

“I hope the local governments and the agencies will do their work [now that the Tepo has been imposed],” Dimoc said in a text message.

The bishop asked the court to issue a Tepo to address illegal quarrying activities that continued despite several cease orders and the creation of a Sagip Mt. Polis task force that intended to rehabilitate the forest there.

Dimoc said he had gone to court “as a last resort.”

The mountain is part of the Central Cordillera forest reserve and has been established as a vital watershed for communities in Banaue and in the Mountain Province capital town of Bontoc.

A September police report, which Dimoc’s lawyer, Francisca Macli-ing-Claver, attached to his Nov. 12 petition, identified five quarry operators who allegedly supplied materials for priority Cordillera road projects.

In 2001, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) recommended placing the forests of Mounts Napulawan and Polis under the supervision of the National Integrated Protected Areas System, following a study conducted by the agency’s Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (now Biodiversity Management Bureau), the petition said.

In a DENR resource inventory conducted in 2012, Polis was described as home to mossy forests and 40 bird species, Dimoc said in the complaint. It also serves as a water source for Banaue’s town center, said Dimoc, director of the church’s Social Action Center when the Sagip Mt. Polis task force was formed.

Dimoc helped develop a rehabilitation program in 2003 for the mountain’s protection and repair and to introduce alternative livelihood for settlements inside the forest and its surroundings.

But the programs could not take off without support from government agencies, local government officials and residents there, he said.

“Remarkably, counsels for the DENR and [the Mines and Geosciences Bureau] did not register any opposition to the issuance of the Tepo … as in fact, they joined [the bishop] in his prayer,” Flor said in her ruling.

The Tepo directed all quarry operators to stop operations and government agencies, like the DENR, to enforce the stop orders.

The court also stopped the Banaue government from processing the tax declarations of land claimants inside Polis, after Dimoc complained about the impact of vegetable gardening and human habitation on the mountain’s ecology.

Flor asked the Banaue municipal assessor to provide the court with a list of Polis settlers who were granted tax declarations by the government, while Dimoc’s petition was being heard to make the protection order a permanent ruling.