Mt. Province tags Writ of Kalikasan unfair
-A A +AWednesday, July 4, 2012
LA TRINIDAD, Benguet - Mt. Province Governor Leonard Mayaen maintains Bontoc town has been doing its part in cleaning the Chico River.
Mayaen said plans to file a Writ of Kalikasan against the town is unfair. “We have been exerting our best for its (Chico River) environmental conservation and protection.”
Weeks ago, Kalinga Provincial Legal Officer Kristian Wandag, a team of lawyers and advocates came together to mull filing the environmental case against nearby Bontoc town for continuous dumping of waste along the Chico River.
Wandag said evidence in the filing is now being gathered spanning almost a decade of documents and complaints. The filing of the Writ can be halted if Bontoc town can assure they will stop dumping along the river.
A Chico River Task Force (CRTF) was created by Kalinga Governor Jocel Baac through an Executive Order in 2012.
According to the CRTF findings, “Bontoc has yet to purchase a lot for the establishment of a sanitary landfill and that the residents still do not fully practice segregation at source.”
The CRTF had also cited Bontoc having no Ecological Solid Waste Management Plan as mandated by RA 9003.
Mayaen insists they did not know about the CRTF findings and recommendations.
Bontoc still has to acquire a sanitary landfill for their waste and it was in 2003 when Kalinga province first raised the issue to the Regional Development Council (RDC).
The RDC created an inter-agency task force for the formulation of interventions on the problem composed of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environment Management Bureau, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Public Works and Highways and the LGUs of Kalinga and Mt. Province.
If granted, the Writ of Kalikasan suit against Bontoc will be the second in the Cordillera after Benguet obtained its Temporary Environmental Protection Order and Kalikasan Writ against Baguio over the Irisan dumpsite, where 6 were killed in the tragic August 2011 trash slide.
Published in the Sun.Star Baguio newspaper on July 05, 2012.
Local news
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