LAWMAKERS will try to convene anew for the Moldex inquiry due to lack of quorum last week.
Another city council session is anticipated to convene hopefully, with attendance enough to merit a meeting at the city hall, Monday afternoon, after failing to gather enough members last week.
“Well as to quorum I’ll always expect that there should be. Maybe you need to know who were not there and why. They can be questioned. In fact, I’m encouraging environmentalists to question the cutting in whatever venue,” Councilor Art Allad-iw said.
Moldex officials were present last Monday at city hall with the environment department and other line agencies but the city council lacked in attendance, forcing the meeting to be cancelled and rescheduled for the following week.
Allad-iw said the council meeting on Monday, June 3, will determine whether the processes in tree cutting and environmental related projects were observed.
“We will determine what moves will follow after the facts,” Allad-iw said.
The councilor, who won his bid for a second term, said there is a need for legislations that would be adopted to regulate cutting of trees.
“We need more trees, not to cut particularly matured ones, to increase our forest cover, which is 21 percent and way below the standard 40 percent forest cover for a balanced environment. Perhaps more stringent measures should be adopted to regulate, if not stop, the cutting of trees,” Allad-iw added.
City Hall was set to investigate the death of 49 trees under the development areas of Moldex.
In the failed meeting, guidelines of the Local Government Code and the Environment Code would have scrutinized and determined who allowed the tree cutting among the developer and line agencies.
The incident has triggered an online petition to President Rodrigo Duterte to stop the cutting of all trees in the city which has gathered thousands of signatures.