The devastation unfolding now in the aftermath of the two typhoons that just ripped through the country one after the other puts the spotlight on corruption, no doubt.
But it’s not just the theft of funds meant for flood control projects that’s the culprit.
There’s also massive and grand corruption at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Unfortunately, because the nation’s attention is glued to the flood infrastructure mess, the scale of corruption among unscrupulous DENR executives has gone unnoticed.
But several industry sources reveal jaw-dropping and heart-wrenching anomalies committed mostly by executives in various local DENR offices who only want to enrich themselves without thinking of the consequences of their actions.
One such incident made it to the news just recently – a DENR official in Calabarzon, specifically the OIC of the DENR Community Environment and Natural Resources Office in Calaca, Batangas, was caught in the act receiving marked money from a complainant who alleged the officer was extorting millions in exchange for the issuance of a certificate that would declare a piece of land as alienable and disposable (A&D).
Land grabbing, rapid urban development
This is a legal loophole of sorts that opens public land for titling and use. And the fact that just about any local DENR official can decide on this is as dangerous as it can possibly be.
Worse, the danger is to the environment and the larger community.
The problem stems from unchecked classifications of A&Ds, which are public lands that are capable of being disposed of to qualified beneficiaries under applicable laws.
An A&D certificate, therefore, is one powerful piece of paper that could spell the difference between a safe environment and an ecological disaster.
The DENR’s regional and local officials are the ones who issue these certificates after determining which parcels may be classified as A&D – giving them a sort of god-like role over our land.
As the case involving the DENR Calaca official showed, what can happen is that these certificates may easily be issued at the right price, regardless of the implications.
This means that anyone with enough resources can take over swaths of land and develop it into whatever they choose – even if it may be harmful to the environment.
In the wrong hands, such documents have resulted in massive land grabbing and rapid urban development, the consequences of which we are seeing now.
Perhaps this is the reason why many catchment areas, floodplains and mountainsides have been developed aggressively by just about anyone.
In Cebu, many of the residential communities washed away by the flash floods were built near rivers.
Mountainside, riverside developments
Public scrutiny has also turned to civil engineer and actor Slater Young’s real estate development – Monterrazas de Cebu, built on the mountainside of Barangay Guadalupe in Cebu City.
The DENR said it has launched a review of Young’s project to see if it complies with its environmental compliance certificate and other existing regulations.
Such a review should have been done before the whole project even started.
Watershed syndicates
I earlier wrote about watershed syndicates at the DENR as concrete proof that corruption exists in the department and that it poses real danger to the environment and to our people.
For instance, the Marikina and Kaliwa watersheds, protected areas, are plagued by syndicates that destroy the natural wealth of the country.
Proclamation 1636, signed by Ferdinand Marcos Sr. on April 18, 1977, declared “as a national park, wildlife sanctuary and game preserve a certain parcel of land of the public domain embraced and situated in the provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna and Quezon, Island of Luzon.”
And yet some of these areas have been developed into housing projects, private resorts and the like, as if the developers have rights over the public lands of the Republic of the Philippines.
By the way, these occupants are not homeless. On the contrary, some of them are powerful families and businesses.
The reason? Some of these occupants managed to secure title-like patents over the land with the help of PENROs or the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Offices of the DENR.
The PENROs, apparently, issue free patents – which give them rights over the property – to those who can afford them, instead of protecting these national parks.
Strangely, there are also three large-scale quarrying Mineral Production Sharing Agreements signed in 1998 and 1999, as I wrote in a previous column.
These quarrying projects, straddling parts of the Masungi Georeserve, occupy an aggregate area of 1,344 hectares.
As I earlier noted, if these continue, the day will come when mountains are leveled to the ground, destroying the geological heritage, water reservoirs and the area’s biodiversity.
The Sierra Madre mountain range is the longest in the country, spanning 540 kilometers from Cagayan in the north to Quezon in the southeastern portion of Luzon.
And as Uwan ripped through the country, citizens are calling for the protection of the mountain range, which is said to have weakened the impact of typhoons that have made landfall in Luzon.
In short, we must protect what protects us, and to do this, we must rid the DENR of corruption.
Now, before it’s too late.
It is raining hard as I write this, and strong winds howl like restless ghosts. Mother Nature’s wrath reminds us of what happens when we keep on destroying what protects us.
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