Thursday, December 23, 2004
Board to collect users’ fees for watersheds next year
NEXT year, heavy equipment, buses and even motorcycles will be charged a fee when entering central Cebu’s protected watersheds.
Any entity, including the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD), extracting water from the protected watersheds will also have to pay P1 for every cubic meter of water it pumps out.
This, as the Central Cebu Protected Landscape (CCPL) Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) adopted yesterday the users’ fee schedule approved earlier by the Sudlon National Park management board.
The fees will form the integrated protected area fund, which will be used to rehabilitate, maintain and protect the CCPL.
Approval
The CCPL PAMB resolution, though, would need the approval of Environment Secretary Michael Defensor.
With the PAMB’s decision, MCWD will have to pay about P37,000 a day to the management board for the 4,000 cubic meters (cu.m.) of water produced daily by the Buhisan dam and the 33,000 cu.m. from the Mananga phase 1 weir in Jaclupan, Talisay City.
Fees for motorized vehicles range from P100 to P300 a year, while owners of heavy equipment have to pay P50 every time their units enter the CCPL. Aside from the annual fees, each person on board the vehicle will be charged: P5 for motorcycles; P25, for cars; and, P30 for trailers, trucks, buses and jeepneys.
Development projects will be charged P50,000 a year for an undertaking in a one-hectare parcel of land and additional P10,000 each hectare for areas that cover two to 10 hectares.
Campers, spelunkers and trekkers will also be made to pay P25 each, while local visitors will be charged P5 for students and P10 for adults. Foreign visitors to the protected area will be charged $2 or the current peso equivalent.
Those producing a movie or tv commercial will be made to pay P3,000 a day.
System
The user’s fee system was approved by the Sudlon National Park PAMB in July 2003. Although it was approved by then environment secretary Elisea Gozun last February, the user’s fee system had not been imposed and was overtaken by the consolidation of the five protected areas in central Cebu.
President Arroyo had proclaimed the Sudlon National Park, Central Cebu National Park and the watersheds of Mananga, Kotkot-Lusaran and Buhisan as the Central Cebu Protected Landscape.
Also during the meeting, Cebu City Councilor Gabriel Leyson was among those appointed as new member of the CCPL management board.
So far, 48 representatives of local government units and non-government organizations have already been appointed in the PAMB, while appointments of six others have been endorsed to the office of the environment secretary for approval. (LAP)
(December 23, 2004 issue)
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