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By Wilhelmina S. Orozco
(Second of four parts)
How was the Forest Hills project able to turn
the forestland in Barangay San Juan, Antipolo, from an idyllic
scenery into a golf course, flat and rolling?
should the construction of a golf course drive
people from their homes and despoil the environment? The site chosen
for the Forest Hills project was forestland. In Barangay San Juan,
204.52 hectares and in Barangay Inarawan, 229.65 hectares were
applied for permits from 1994 to 1996. To date, the project
continues to expand its area coverage. More than 70 families have
already been removed from the project’s site.
Samson de Leon, chief of staff under DENR-Southern
Tagalog, said a 1987 decree ordered that no further classification
shall be made of lands from timberland to alienable and disposable
land. P.D. 705, or the Forestry Reform Code, specified that lands
with a slope above 18 percent shall remain inalienable, and P.D.
1586 prohibits development (including subdivisions) of the land that
has more than an 18-percent slope.
The approval for a land project hinges on the
result of the environmental impact statement (EIS). Before being
issued with an environmental certificate of compliance (ECC), a
project must first have an environmental impact assessment (EIA) as
required by P.D. 1586 (1978) and the environmental impact statement.
The EIA evaluates and predicts the likely effects of a project on
the environment during construction, commissioning, operation and
abandonment. The EIS assesses the direct and indirect impacts on the
biophysical and human environment and provides measures.
To find out how the controversial project was
approved—whether it adhered to environmental principles, decrees
and other legal standards—The Manila Times analyzed the only EIS
for the third phase of the project, dated 1996. The EIS was provided
by Luciano Hornilla, director of the DENR-EMB in Southern Tagalog,
and was the only basis for issuing the environmental certificate of
compliance.
Unfortunately the EIS contained many
questionable entries, blurring the very basis for approving the
project permit.
First, it doesn’t specifically describe the
area. Instead it describes Rizal province generally, without
mentioning the barangay site of the project. It mentions that
monkeys, wild deer, wild pigs and kalaw abound in Rizal province,
not in the barangay.
On the other hand, the farmer residents said
these rare species could be found in the forestland, the project
site, that they took care of.
Second, the EIS says the terrain of the project
site has “a slope ranging from 0 to 3 percent and not sensitive to
disturbance. Thus no adverse activities of terrain is predicted.”
But in its project proposal for expanding the
golf course, Fil-Estate quotes the Bureau of Soils, in 1982, which
said:
“The land is a tropical forest which was a
habitat for trees, flora and fauna. [Before] the grading activities
that have already taken place at the project site, the slope of the
project area was over 18 percent. Based on this map, erosion could
be rated as moderate. [According to the report, most of the original
surface soil had eroded owing to the construction of the residential
site.] Originally the soil in the project area is classified and
mapped as Antipolo clay with a slope of 25 percent to 45 percent,
moderately eroded.”
Clearly, the forestland has a slope of more than
18 percent, and therefore is ineligible for conversion into a
residential estate, much more into a golf course. This is borne out
by the same proposal quoting the Bureau of Soils’ (1982)
description of the soil thus: “Originally, the soil in the project
area is classified and mapped as Antipolo clay with a slope of 25
percent to 45 percent, moderately eroded.”
Third, the EIS denied the fertile character of
the land by saying, “. . . the area [has been] idle for a long
time and is marginally suitable for agriculture . . . unproductive
and [does] not contribute to the agricultural production for the
municipality.”
The place looks adversely different from its
previous state in the eighties, when I visited it. Passing through
what is now called Phase 1 of Forest Hills, at Barangay San Juan, I
observed valleys full of trees dotting them like mushrooms. The way
to the excluded area of the project was also lined with trees and
had a bird’s-eye view of Metro Manila.
At the excluded area of the project, I could
still see the caretaker, Arcadio Danao, harvest fruits from trees he
himself planted. He still gathers narra branches for use as posts of
his hut. Ricardo Natividad, who helped him till the land, and who
died in the nineties, was able to raise tilapia and shrimps in the
Buyag creek, across Barangay San Juan, Danao said.
According to the EIS, the forestland abounded
with pugo, maya, tikling and crows. Rare birds like the owl, oriole,
parrot and bats flew there. Animals which included the deer, wild
boar, or baboy ramo, roamed freely. Wild chickens could be hunted
down and cooked. Lizards abound as well as insects such as bees,
ants, butterflies, spiders, grasshoppers, dragonflies, tree bugs and
bakabakahan.
The EIS adds, “The trees abundant in the area
. . . included coconut, santol, mango, casoy, langka, star apple,
marang, tiesa, avocado, duhat and sampaloc. Wooded trees consisted
of bamboo, dita and narra. The tallest trees were 18 meters high and
the dbh [diameter at breast height] at 46 centimeters.” In other
words, the forestland was almost a virginal home to rare flora and
fauna.
Crispina Ronquillo Castro, a farmer at San Juan
who refuses to budge from her farm despite constant pressures from
the corporations, corroborated the above description. She recalled
that in 1974, her first time at the place, wild animals, like
monkeys and wild boars, used to roam around. Her sister, Brigida,
even saw a huge snake wrapped around and asleep, scaring her away.
The forestland therefore was a natural habitat
and a viable area for food production. Even the Municipal
Agricultural Officer of Antipolo, Rizal, attested that the
landholding is an agricultural land.
Hence, it is highly impossible for Barangays
Inarawan and San Juan to have disparate characteristics, one being
less fertile and the other highly productive.
Today, the forestland has changed its contour,
its physical characteristics. The EIS order has apparently played
down its productive character to suit the residential and golf
purposes of the project.
(To be continued)
Part 1 |
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