OCTOBER 30 DEADLINE

THE City Agriculture Office (CAO) expressed confidence that all the illegal fish pens built along navigational lanes in all coastal barangays will all be gone by Oct. 31.

Oct. 30 is the final deadline set by Mayor Belen Fernandez for all the fish pen owners to remove their illegal structures along navigational lanes in the city or will be demolished by the city government.

“I think we can meet the deadline even if we are only doing manual dismantling,” said Molina.

The demolition team is composed of 12 men, plus two others deployed for monitoring. The teams are using two bancas owned by the city government.

However, Molina admitted they are still sparing the 63 fish pens in parts of the river claimed by their owners as part of their private properties covered by torrens titles though partly under water, which she earlier said are numbering 63.

“We can not yet demolish these amid the claim by their owners that they are covered by valid torrens titles under their names,” she said.

While Molina, did not clarify if the ownership claim also exempts the owners from the city ordinance banning illegal fish pens since the illegal fish pens will be left untouched. City Legal Officer Atty. Vicky Cabrera, however, said the city ordinance has banned fish pens in the city’s river system and therefore, any illegal fish pen found in the river must be removed. “That is the law,” she told The PUNCH in a phone interview.

Molina said she ordered the Task Force Bantay Ilog headed by Maximo Solis, action officer, to determine the boundaries of the fish pens standing on supposed titled properties to ensure that they have not extended their actual boundaries.

She added the owners of these fish pens located on titled lands are still validating their claims with the City Assessor’s Office.

The CAO has allowed the owners to continue operating their fish pens since 2013 because of their claims when the Fernandez administration launched the campaign to rid the city’s rivers of fish pens.

Of the remaining illegal fish pens along navigational lanes, Maximo Solis, head of the task force, estimated that only two to three percent of the over 220 fish pens that used to operate in the city’s rivers have remained for demolition, adding that some 200 have already been dismantled.

Molina said the efforts to clear the rivers were complemented by P/Supt. Neil Miro, acting-chief of police, who helped persuade fish pen owners allow have their pens demolished by the city government.

So far, she said, nobody resisted the demolition. (Leonardo Micua)

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