Davao City Council approves more quarry applications

(SunStar Davao graphics)
(SunStar Davao graphics)

THE Davao City Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) assured the city councilors Monday, December 10, that the 96 approved permits and 50 pending requests for quarrying operations are not harming the environment yet.

This assurance from the Cenro prompted the city councilors to vote in favor of the 18 requests for allowable use of sand and gravel quarry items under Councilor Diosdado Angelo Mahipus.

“Based on our assessment, we are in favor of granting the [quarry requests],” acting section chief of Cenro Mines and Geosciences Melody Dapusala said Monday.

She said they already conducted partial assessment and area verification as well as imposed the requirement for compliance certificate.

Dapusala said they have been closely monitoring the 63 active quarries operating in the city.

The quarry requests were approved despite the objection of Councilor Maria Belen Acosta, who demanded for the Davao River Resource Sustainability Assessment which the Cenro failed to provide during the council session.

“We need to know the threshold. How many quarry operations could be done in the city?,” Acosta said, clarifying that there is a need for the council to know the limit of the city in terms of quarry operations or they will have to approve every single quarry request which could be harmful to the environment.

“We could have been more scientific on these items. What is one or two sessions for this so that everybody will be assured that there will be no long-term repercussions or effects,” she said.

She added that the requirement of Cenro for massive tree planting does not assure sustainability for the environment if there is over-quarrying.

“So far, wala pong [over-quarrying] dahil monitored po sila,” Dapusala said.

Meanwhile, Mahipus said that the items queued have long been overdue and those who requested this already complied with all the needed requirements.

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