DENR denies support for Capitol’s MOA
COJUANGCO UPDATES
LINGAYEN—The Regional Executive Director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) assured Pangasinan Fifth District Rep. Kimi Cojuangco that his office remains in full support to the road widening project of the Manila North Road (MNR) and that his office will not enter into any agreement without full consultation with Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) key counterparts.
Samuel Peñafiel made the assurance in a letter he sent to Cojuangco, wife of former Pangasinan Fifth district Rep. Mark Cojuangco, who is waging a battle to have the long delayed MNR project that traverses their district to push through and trees that obstruct the project be cut.
He added that the agreement entered into by Provincial and City Environment and Natural Resources Officer Leduina Co with the local representative Provincial Administrator Rafael Howard Baraan and local representatives of DPWH and three non-government organizations last month opposing tree cutting does not reflect the official position of his office because she did it without his consent and approval.
He said he will only act based on the instructions of higher authorities and policy issuances in the DENR.
Co in her letter to Peñafiel dated Sept. 18, said she “agreed to sign the “agreement” as an expression of support to the collective decision that there shall be no cutting of trees yet except and only upon final determination by independent experts that trees to be felled have no more chances of survival.”
“Also the undersigned (Co) was of the impression that the agreement dwelled only on the issue regarding the dead trees and not to other or future trees to be affected by the project,” Co added.
Meanwhile, Sixth District Board Member Alfonso Bince Jr. said in his privilege speech Monday that there is no conflict between the Pangasinan’s Environment Code of 2012 that allows tree cutting for road widening product and another resolution that expressed the body’s sense in opposing tree cutting.
Bince reacted to Mark Cojuangco’s letter received on Sept. 19 by the provincial board pointing out the inconsistency in the provincial board’s stand on tree cutting, first in an ordinance passed in 2012 embodied in the Environmental Code allowing tree cutting for road widening and a resolution passed last month “Expressing the sense of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan opposing the tree-cutting along the national road within Pangasinan with intent to preserve as many trees as possible”.
“I believe that this newly enacted legislation puts the entire Board, which seems to have endorsed it unanimously, in an awkward if not inconsistent position viz-a-viz the resolution it recently passed regarding tree cutting for the MNR,” Cojuangco said in his letter.
But Bince said, “I’m sure the distinguished Sir Mark (Cojuangco) knows that a resolution is just an expression of the sentiment of the enacting body”. He said the resolution does not amend the Environment Code.
Engr. Rosendo So, a close Cojuangco ally and founder of Abono party-list, said it is very clear that the ordinance is still in effect “unless they amend it”.
“But unless and until they have amended it, then it is still the local law that must be followed,” he said.
So said if they (provincial officials) really ban cutting of trees, “then they should have made an ordinance to support their stand so that all is clear”.
“What they later made, after Congressman Mark has announced his gubernatorial plan in 2016, is only a resolution expressing their sense opposing tree cutting. That does not hold water,” So added.
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