DENR stops reclamation project at Calmay River
COMPANY FINED P50,000
THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) finally stopped the reclamation project on a portion of the Calmay River in Dagupan.
Regional Director Joel Salvador of the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) and Atty. Joseph Estrella, a lawyer of DENR, served the cease and desist order (CDO) at past noon of Friday to the project proponent, 888 Properties Inc., through Catherine Bermachea, project coordinator.
The DENR officials were accompanied by Dagupan City Legal Officer George Mejia and Atty. Manuel Aoanan, executive assistant of Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr.
Mejia said the CDO permanently prevents the company from undertaking any activity at the project site because its Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) has already been revoked.
“From hereon, no person can enter the area,” Mejia said, adding that this was a victory for the mayor who personally protested the project, even accusing the DENR of violating its own rules by issuing an ECC to a project that will kill the river.
Salvador and Estrella also struck down a sign on the site stating the registry number of the ECC issued by EMB in August last year which it subsequently suspended October 31, 2008 pending a relocation survey to be undertaken by the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO).
The CDO also imposed a P50,000 fine on the company as penalty to be paid within 15 days, for violating the provision of its ECC “without prejudice to the filing of any sanction and action by this Office and/or any other agency of the government”.
When the CDO was served, workers employed by the company were still doing sandbagging operations on parts of the Calmay River bed.
“I hope the issuance of the CDO will finally resolve the issue brought to us by the local government that accused us of having committed a mistake in issuing the ECC. But in the end we were able to prove that it was the proponent (888 Dagupan Properties, Inc.) that committed the violation,” Salvador told newsmen after serving the CDO.
Salvador said this case should serve as an example and precedent to those who are thinking that “they can do what they want to do against the environment”.
Mejia said the Public Order and Safety Office has been tasked to regularly monitor compliance to the CDO by the company.
If the company violates the CDO, both the EMB and the local government are ready to initiate further legal action.
The company originally applied for a backfilling project for a land development, but instead it took on reclamation activities on the property that is under the river bed, disrupting the river flow and threatened to cause flooding in nearby communities.
Salvador said the ECC was suspended earlier so the DENR can determine whether the area described for the backfill is, indeed, a property on land or part of the river.
A subsequent report by Community Environment and Natural Resources Officer Romeo Nalupa to EMB affirmed that the company was backfilling inside the river bed, and therefore required a reclamation permit from the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA).
Bermachea claims she did not receive the suspension order for the ECC.
The suspension order signed by Salvador was mailed with registry card to to Bermachea but was returned nine times as she cannot be located on the address she indicated in her application for the ECC.
The DENR officials said it was incumbent upon Barmachea’s company to inform the EMB of its new location.—LM
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