TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, August 2 (PIA)—The public plaza in front of the Batuan municipal town hall, glowed in eerie candle light as hundreds of residents joined by interfaith leaders united and prayed for quick government resolution of the demanded amendments to the expanded National Integrated Protected Area System (E-NIPAS) Law.
Just recently feeling the choke after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued over 250 Notices of Violations (NOV) to residents who effected some development in their properties without the consent from the Protected Areas Management Board (PAMB), residents now realize how the deemed protection of the Chocolate Hills as natural monuments, affected their lives now.
64 years old Jose Bonifacio Sumampong of Upper Cabacnitan, Batuan, has been tilling the land he inherited from his parents who also got this from their parents, said since birth, it was only recently that they feel they are getting dictated at what to do in the lands they owned.
Sumampong, along with about five hundred residents of Batuan, some residents from Bilar, Sagbayan, Carmen and from areas where some of the notable cone-shaped hills rise, joined leaders of religious groups in calling for an immediate amendment of Republic Act 11038.
Leading them in ecumenical prayers were Rev. Fr. Carmelo Tandugon, United Church of Christ in the Philippines Pastor Abner Valiente, Seventh Day Adventist Church pastor Porferio canda, Assemblies of God Pastor Roger Jimenez, Foursquare Church Pastor Rodrigo Satdan, Baptist Church Pastor Carlos Villaruz, Jesus Miracle Crusade Pastor Chrispulo dele Cruz and Iglesia ni Kristo Minister Generoso Comida.
It may be recalled that in 1997, former president Fidel V. Ramos declared the Chocolate Hills as a protected area through Proclamation No. 1037.
RA 11038 or the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System (e-NIPAS) Act of 2018, listed the Chocolate Hills as one of the 94 protected areas, as the new law also provided measures for proper protected area management.
The e-NIPAS also encompass ecologically rich and unique areas and biologically important public lands that are habitats of rare and threatened species of plants and animals, biogeographic zones and related ecosystems, and as such, has to be ‘protected.”
The Act also calls for heritage preservation, rationalized development focused on protecting and conserving biologically significant areas while keeping indigenous knowledge systems and practices.
In protected areas, exploration for energy resources may be allowed but only for the purpose of gathering data and information and only if such activity is carried out with the least damage to surrounding areas.
For this, it also provides for the establishment of environmental and natural resources offices (ENRO) and protected area management board (PAMB) offices within the protected areas, to check on environmental impact assessment and Environmental Compliance Certificate for those intending to develop within the protected areas.
The law also establishes an Integrated Protected Area Fund (IPAF) for financing the projects and sustaining the operation of protected areas and the System.
With the Chocolate Hills declared as the country’s 3rd National geological Monument (CHNM) on June 18, 1988 in recognition of its scientific value and geomorphic uniqueness, Boholanos who own titles of the lands now encompassed by the protected areas proclamation and up holding worthless pieces of documents of ownership.
A viral post of a development of a resort with a swimming pool right in between hills within the protected areas has caused the suspension of nearly 200 government officials and employees, for grave abuse of authority for presumably allowing such to happen.
“We can not build anymore, we can not even cut trees that we planted in our yards,” Sumampong said.
Administering a track of land which his grandfather left them, he said, with the recent implementation of the law, only about a quarter of the total size of the land they inherited, can be planted. Most of the land they own are where hills lie and are now under strict government protection.
Most of the town’s buildings are now in violation of the eNIPAS law, that even the municipal government could not push through with some P7.5M development fund for three farm to market roads and a health center, because of the need to comply with the EIA and the ECC, shared Batuan Municipal Local Government Operations Officer Adonis Damalerio.
To deliver their sentiments, residents run a signature campaign for amendment of the law.
In their proposed amendment of the eNIPAS law is for the exclusion of all flat lands, alienable and disposable lands from the CHNM protected area; to put up a clear demarcation on protected areas, a clear definition of the Chocolate Hills to exclude other hills not otherwise similar to the chocolate hills profiles.
The residents also asked for just compensation for their lands, should a private property be taken from them, allow economic activities to flourish for the town to harness its business potential and just sharing of income from the CHNM and allow Batuan to develop its own Chocolate Hills Complex. (PIABohol)
