Saturday, April 26, 2008 [ manilatimes.net ]
Senators Cayetano and Zubiri said they appreciate the entry of investors and do not intend to scare them away
By Efren L. Danao, Senior Reporter
SUBIC FREEPORT: Chairman Feliciano Salonga of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) criticized the Senate Friday for making a “big fuss” over the housing project of Hanjin, a Koren shipping company.
“The senators are barking up the wrong tree. There is no environmental violation committed in the housing project. I am surprised that much attention is being given to this when our main problem lies in the parasitic vines,” Salonga said before the start of a joint Senate committee hearing on the housing project.
He said that the proper focus should be on the productive presence of Hanjin, which he said would employ about 13,000 laborers in what he called “the biggest shipyard” in Southeast Asia.
“Hanjin had built a ship in less than a year, which is an extraordinary accomplishment. Booked contract amounts to $3.5 billion, which will be completed in two to three years,” he added.
The Senate committees on environment and natural resources headed by Senator Pia Cayetano, housing and urban planning headed by Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri, and government corporations and public enterprises headed by Senator Richard Gordon, are jointly investigating reports that Hanjin built its 184-unit condominium buildings for its officials and employees on a three-hectare lot within a protected watershed area.
Cayetano and Zubiri said that they appreciate the entry of investors and they do not intend to scare them away but they added that they wanted to make sure that all laws on environment and zoning are followed by the investors.
“We’re here to strengthen existing laws,” said Cayetano.
Zubiri added that there was no chance of having the buildings demolished since they are already built. “We just hope that next time they take into serious consideration the consequences involved in building these structures in a forested area,” Zubiri said.
While Gordon noted that he was convinced that SBMA did not violate any law in approving the Hanjin housing project but he questioned the aesthetics of building a 28-story condominium building in the area.
SBMA Administrator Armand Areza said that the housing site was two kilometers away from the core ecological zone of the watershed area where no development is allowed. He also said that a team of land use experts hired by the World Bank to prepare a zoning plan for SBMA, had recommended in 2002 that the area, of which the housing site is a part, be declared as a recreational area.
Areza also said that only 43 trees were cut in the Hanjin housing site and that the US Navy had previously cut many trees there when it built its ammunition storage facility.
Cayetano said that it was the SBMA, not the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, that issued the environmental clearance certificate to the housing project.
“I am not aware of any law allowing the delegation of this power,” she said, as she questioned the legality of the memorandum of agreement between SBMA and the DENR.
Shortly before the hearing started at the Subic Gateway Park, a group of protesters suddenly popped out and demanded an investigation of the demolition of their houses in Subic to give way to the Hanjin shipyard. They also claimed that they were given a relocation site high on a mountaintop, almost three kilometers away from the sea, even if most of them are fishermen.
Zubiri said the joint committees would make an ocular inspection of the relocation site in the next hearing. Gordon said the problem occurred because Hanjin gave the money for the relocation to the local government of Subic but this apparently did not reach the supposed beneficiaries.
“I saw the relocation site and I was scandalized. There was no water so of course, the people refused to move there. I will not allow anybody to get away with this,” he said on the alleged anomaly in the relocation of 450 families from the Hanjin shipyard site. -- With Anthony Bayarong
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