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Wednesday, September 24, 2003
City Hall, firm violating EMB 10 order: group
By Lizanilla J. Amarga
MAYOR Vicente Emano and UKC Builders Inc. are wantonly violating the local Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) 10 cease and desist order not to touch the side road pavements parallel to the historical Huluga Open Site.
The Historical Conservationist Advocates (HCA) made the allegations after visiting the site Monday. The group also took some pictures and circulated it to different media outfits Monday and Tuesday.
HCA convenor and RIMCU head Dr. Erlinda Burton said it was a blatant violation of the order issued by EMB 10 chief Dr. Sabdullah Abubacar last August 15.
"Any earth movement in the area is not allowed as there is a cease and desist order against it but now you can see the crane in the picture digging up some soil...they are making holes in the archeological site!," she told Sun.Star Tuesday night.
She said other pictures depicted not just a crane digging up some earth but some new drainage and lamp posts in the side road pavements parallel to the historical site. This was prohibited in the EMB 10's cease order.
Earlier, Emano has insisted on continuing the bridge and road network project to its full completion. He said he is set to inagurate this more than half a billion pesos project soon.
Burton, along with other HCA convenors Elson Elizaga, Antonio Montalvan III, Clara Gonzales, Bencyrus Ellorin and Atty. Manuel Ravanera to mention a few, met Tuesday night to discuss their next move.
Wrong example
They are set to reveal their decision on how to counter Emano's "blatant violation" sometime Wednesday. Burton said Emano and UKC are regarding Abubacar's order as trash.
"They refused to pay the P50,000 fine and now they are violating its provisions!," she said.
To Burton, the mayor is setting the "wrong example" for the people to follow and that it is "going to be very bad" for the city. She said Emano is supposed to be a "good model."
The archeologist who studied abroad and is now with Xavier University said even if the mayor filed for a motion for reconsideration to the office of Environment Secretary Elisea Gozun this should not excuse him from following the order issued by Abubacar.
"Our plea is that he follows the order issued by the EMB 10," she said.
Among the conditions Burton enumerated were that City Hall set up a delineation of the site and put up signage.
She said she is not buying Emano's excuse that he can't put up signage declaring the area as an archeological site as the land there are privately owned.
"That is a very lame excuse! The government has the power and the authority to do this. It is not as if the government is going to own the area only to put some signages!," she said adding that Emano can easily talk this out with the landowners there.
Burton said her group would like to conduct more exploration in the area particularly in the west slope.
She said they have found a lot of artifacts in the are and that the "materials are very important for reconstruction of the culture."
"These are layers of occupation...they just don't understand how these materials can lead us to the clues of Cagayan de Oro's past," she said.
(September 24, 2003 issue)
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