ANOTHER blunder that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and local government unit of Sabayan town is the bulldozed barangay road between the two chocolate hills within the Captain’s Peak resort site in barangay Canmano.
This surfaced during the ocular inspection sometime last year of the resort by the members of the provincial board led by Vice-Governor Dionisio Victor A. Balite. Since then, there was no word about how to resolve it since the officials concerned were focused on the questioned amenities, like the swimming pool with water slides carved beside the two hills where the resort’s titled lot is located.
The municipality of Sagbayan has offered to restore the alleged defaced two chocolate hills where the barangay road traversed near the resort.
If ever it was a defacement, “We are more than willing to restore what has been allegedly and perceived to be defacement on the Chocolate Hills as a result of the LGU’s effort to rehabilitate or repair the old existing barangay road as described above on the basis of a request of barangay Canmano,” municipal mayor Restituto Q. Suarez III said in his position paper submitted to the board.
The mayor further explained in his three-page position paper that the town had “no ulterior motive to deface, alter or mutilate the hills within its territorial jurisdiction” contrary to malicious newspaper report.”
The mayor said that the move to repair the said road was prompted since the town tried to reopen the tourism sites that would necessitate improving its services and provide amenities in accordance with the mandate of the national government for economic recovery after the onslaught of the pandemic.
Another reason in said reopening of the barangay road is that the municipal government has responded to the barangay request to make repair of said road situated at the border of Canmano and Libertad Norte.
To prove that it is an existing barangay, Suarez has provided the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) with the certified copy of cadastral survey No. 959-D on the lot No. 3558 with 10 meters wide. It said that the repair of the said road was only 4.5 meters wide.
The town “has just initially repaired the existing barangay road with 4.5 meters in width only by simply clearing both sides of the existing road and grubbing on it” and it does not mean that defacement of the hills, the mayor said.
Environment committee chairperson Atty. Jamie Villamor said that she’s contemplating to craft legislative measures to lay down the groundwork for such guidelines and forming the Technical Working Group for the purpose of protecting the world-renowned chocolate hills.
Another measure she’s planning to propose is make an Ordinance defining terms, such as “defacement” and other related terms in determining what is proper in the protecting and conserving the hills.
“The hills should not be altered nor defaced and extraction is strictly prohibited” was one of the provisions of Resolution No. 01, series of 2018, executed by PAMB), governing the Chocolate Hills Natural Monument, for the Captain’s Peak Garden Eco-park Tourism resort in said barangay. (Ric V. Obedencio)
