By Boy Ryan Zabal
Sen. Franklin Drilon, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, urged the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to stop the implementation of Presidential Proclamation No. 1064 which would effect the bidding out of lands in the island resort of Boracay.
Proclamation No. 1064 would practically eject the resort owners and businessmen who have made big investments in Boracay, warned Drilon.
Recently, residents of the island, resort owners and businessmen staged a protest against Presidential Proclamation No. 1064, insisting that they have been occupying the island since time immemorial.
Proclamation No. 1064 classifies more than half of the world-famous island into a public agricultural land open for public bidding.
Drilon said, "DENR should not be hasty in its implementation pending the Supreme Court ruling on the petition filed by resort owners and landowners seeking the recall of Proclamation No. 1064.He sought the commitment of Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes during the hearing of the Senate finance committee on the DENR budget recently.
Reyes informed Drilon that the DENR has "not moved an inch closer to titling or bidding out" Boracay. He, however, warned they have the authority to demolish establishments in Boracay violating environmental laws. Drilon replied that he disagreed with the DENR pronouncement calling on resort owners to bid for their own land under Proclamation No. 1064.
"It is not fair that suddenly, these will be put to public bidding and cronies of this administration could dip their hands into these properties," Drilon stressed.
He added that "it would appear that the issuance of Proclamation No. 1064 is this administration’s last ditch effort to force its will on 629 hectares of Boracay lands, after exhausting legal remedies, which have resulted in unfavorable decisions."
Drilon stressed that Proclamation No. 1064 would prejudice the resort owners and residents of Boracay who have worked to make the island resort into a world-class tourist destination. "At the very least, equity is in favor of land owners in Boracay because they invested hundreds of millions of pesos to improve their properties and make the island a tourist attraction that it is now today," he said.Resort owners and stake holders were forced to elevate their case before the Supreme Court after the government insisted on implementing Proclamation No. 1064.
The petitioners initially won their case before the Kalibo regional trial court on July 19, 1999.The government appealed the case before the Court of Appeals (CA) where the case was dismissed on December 9, 2004 in favor of the resort owners and stake holders. The CA said the resort owners and stake holders "cannot just be prejudiced by a declaration that the lands they have occupied since time immemorial are parts of a forest reserve."
The proclamation enables the government, through the DENR, "to dispose and alienate the said land classified as agricultural… at public bidding at their market value pursuant to law, with the occupant-claimant owner, being given only the preference to buy by matching the highest bid at the auction sale."/MP mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com
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