ENVIRONMENTAL group Green Alert assailed the move of the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (Penro) against the owners of illegal structures encroaching the protected zone of the Northern Negros Natural Park (NNNP) in Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental.
Penro is pushing for administrative procedures against the 94 individuals, mostly prominent personalities including Murcia Mayor Andrew Montelibano and former Salvador Benedicto mayor Jose Max Ortiz, who were served with cease and desist orders in 2014 for allegedly constructing illegal structures at the NNNP.
Green Alert has expressed opposition to the move.
“Administrative proceedings are only conducted in the implementation of environmental law for the purposes of due process; if the suspected/alleged forest products have permits or has legal documents to show that it is legal and also if the site of the illegal acts are in public area, or outside the forestland or protected area,” the group said.
Green Alert, in a statement, pointed out that the administrative proceedings “will open the floodgates of all possibilities to circumvent the law.”
“In the case of illegal structures, the acts are obviously within the protected area and under the National Integrated Protected Area System Act (Nipas) Law, which clearly violated the law. Therefore, no administrative proceedings should happen,” the group said.
Green Alert said there was violation of the law.
“The people who do this would take extra care because this is already an act of defiance of the existing law,” the group added. (MPE)