DAGUPAN City Legal Officer Victoria Cabrera said she will meet with City Agriculture Officer Emma Molina and City Assessor Roland Soni on Tuesday to discuss the proper guidelines on how to carry out the order of Mayor Belen T. Fernandez to clear all rivers of illegal fish pens irrespective of claims of private ownership of parts of the river.

Cabrera stressed this in an interview with The PUNCH but did not elaborate on the guidelines but merely pointed out that Mayor Fernandez was emphatic about her desire for all illegal fish pens in Dagupan to go by her October 30 deadline.

She said in clearing the rivers of illegal obstructions, “private properties” will not be exempted.

Meanwhile, City Agriculture Officer Emma Molina said 28 land owners already submitted documents, including their proofs of payment of taxes, pertaining to their claims over part of the water where their fish pens are located.

All these documents will be submitted to the City Assessor’s Office for validation with the old 1928 Cadastral Map of Dagupan, she said.

Of the number, Molina said, 26 properties were covered by torrens titles and two by tax declarations.

Molina’s office earlier listed 63 fish pens that were spared from demolition because their owners claimed that their structures were built on part of their titled properties that were eroded into the water.

But she clarified the number but was based on the 2013 list and many of these may not be standing anymore.

She said the Task Force Bantay Ilog headed by Maximo Solis are conducting physical inventories on the fish pens supposedly standing on titled lots, measuring their areas, determining their location and owners.

The task force had so far completed inventories in Barangay Lucao, Tambac, Calmay, and Carael.

Meanwhile, Solis reported that only three to seven fish pens had remained along the navigational lanes in the city.

The owners of these again pleaded than they be given a few more days to harvest their milkfish and after which they will personally tear down their structures.

Molina reiterated her appeal to the owners of the remaining fish pen owners in Dagupan to tear down their fish pens since these will be surely demolished soon as the city begins its dredging operations.

Molina said it will just be a matter of time when the out dredging starts because the two backhoes purchased by the city government had already arrived. (Leonardo Micua)

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