QC village, bus firm clash over trees, noise, fumes, dogs

Residents of a barangay in Quezon City have raised a howl against a bus company for cutting nearly 70 trees to expand its terminal and for maintaining a refueling station that purportedly generates noise, dust and fumes as early as 4 a.m. every day.

However, an official of the transport firm linked the complaints to earlier protests coming from informal settlers who stand to lose their homes because of the company’s expansion plans. He also wondered why the company was being singled out for causing noise and air pollution by residents living near the oft-congested Edsa.

In a May 8 resolution, officials of Barangay Pinyahan criticized Jac Liner Inc. for the “illegal cutting of trees without a public hearing or consultation and a barangay clearance or resolution.” They urged the environment, transportation and health departments, as well as the city government, to impose sanctions on the company.

The trees were cut and balled on May 5 and 6, according to barangay chair Jesus Lipnica  Jr. who signed the resolution along with seven councilors, the barangay secretary and Sangguniang Kabataan chair.

Reached for comment, a Jac Liner official said the company had secured a permit from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources as early as January and that DENR representatives even marked the trees and supervised the cutting.

Pete Santillan, a legal affairs assistant to the company’s president, said the trees were cut because Jac Liner was constructing a new garage on the 3,000-sq m lot it is renting from Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) near the corner of Kamuning and Edsa in Quezon City.

Santillan noted that Jac Liner has been operating in Barangay Pinyahan for about 25 years  and that residents only began complaining recently against the terminal’s expansion.

He noted that illegal settlers, numbering about 2,000 families, had been occupying portions of the land covered by the firm’s expansion plan, hence the opposition to the expansion plans.

Santillan said one of the settlers had even built a 12-door apartment in the area, another had set up a kitchen for a barbecue business, and another resident had a portion of the lot turned into a cockpit arena.

When the company started renting the land from Meralco more than a year ago, illegal structures were demolished, he recalled.

“Of course, they would complain when we took over the land; they are affected,” Santillan said. “All we’re asking for is a valid title proving that they own the place or any authorization from Meralco that they can use the land for their own purposes.”

The Pinyahan resolution also expressed an “objection to the bus terminal’s refueling station” which it claimed had been put up without public consultation and a barangay resolution, two of the requirements before the company could get an environmental compliance certificate from DENR.

It also complained about the “more or less 20 buses” that belched out smoke at the station “from 4 a.m. onwards” every day in violation of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

The terminal’s expansion actually began even before the trees were cut. In an April 18 letter to the barangay chair, resident Andre Joselito Caindec said the buses were being parked closer to his neighborhood, “instantly result(ing) in an explosion of noise and dust.”

“We are roused from our sleep coughing and nauseated from the acrid smell of diesel fumes!” Caindec wrote. “This is most pronounced and intolerable at 4 a.m. and late in the evening when the bus engines are left idling.”

Another letter sent on May 10 had residents also complaining about the barking of the company’s K-9 dogs.

But Santillan said the company had secured a permit to operate the station from the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau in compliance with the CAA and that the 15-year-old facility gets inspected by the Department of Energy every three months.

He also said it is against company rules for the bus drivers to keep their engines idling inside  the garage as this would be a waste of fuel.

As for the supposed noise pollution, Santillan noted that the station was located within 50 meters of Edsa. “Do you think we are the only cause of the noise? Maybe what they’re hearing is the noise from Edsa,” he said.

And concerning the dogs, Santillan said the company had to keep around 10 bomb-sniffing dogs at the terminal in order to “save lives.”