Dangerous ‘lambanog’/ Road rights of way

CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio Domogan last week advised businessmen and consumers here to heed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory against selling or drinking the native alcoholic beverage “lambanog” that are not FDA-registered.

The mayor’s move was in compliance with the Dept. of Interior and Local Government (DILG) advisory dated Dec. 12, 2018 urging all local chief executives in the country to ensure that lambanog that are not approved by the FDA will not be sold or made available in the localities. 

The DILG action was pursuant to the FDA Advisory No. 2018-325 advising the public “to exercise extreme caution in purchasing and consuming the alcoholic beverage Lambanog specifically those not registered with the FDA following series of deaths that occurred purportedly as a result of the consumption thereof.”

The FDA in its advisory said a product verification and laboratory analysis it conducted with the Department of Health Epidemiology Bureau confirmed that the lambanog ingested by the fatalities contained high levels of the substance methanol and were not registered with the FDA.

“Products that are not registered with the FDA pose potential health hazards to the consuming public since they have not gone through the agency’s evaluation and testing.  Thus, the FDA cannot guarantee their quality and safety,” the FDA noted.

“Ingestion of products with high amounts of methanol poses serious adverse effects like blindness and permanent neurologic dysfunction among others and may even lead to death.”

The FDA advised the public to only purchase or consume lambanog products that are registered with the FDA.

“Retail outlets and other dealers of alcoholic beverages are warned against the sale of unregistered products under the pain of being prosecuted for violation of the FDA Act of 2009, the Food Safety Act of 2013 and other relevant laws, rules and regulations,” the FDA said.

“All  Local Government Units (LGUs) and Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) are requested to ensure that these products are not sold or made available in their localities or areas of jurisdictions.”

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The city government will tighten the requirements in issuing clearances for lot registration applications to prevent the titling of lots that are part of road right-of-ways (RROWs).

Mayor Mauricio Domogan said that aside from the usual requirement of a certification that the lot being applied for is within or outside the identified city or barangay needs being issued by the City Planning and Development Office, the city will impose another requirement this time a certification showing if the lot is within or outside the road right-of-way.

The RROW clearance will be issued by the City Engineering Office for city roads and the Dept. of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for national roads.

The mayor said this procedure would help the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) identify lots that are within the RROWs and are therefore not qualified for titling.

This was reached during the recent meeting of the City Lands Identification Committee chaired by Mayor Mauricio Domogan and co-chaired by council committee on lands chair Coun. Edgar Avila, where the officials agreed to toughen the city’s stance to ensure that RROWs and even areas considered as critical or danger zones will not be built upon.

During the meeting, the committee also agreed to pursue the survey of all public lands identified for city or barangay needs to make the claims absolute and guarantee their preservation and protection from unscrupulous land speculators.

The mayor earlier formed a task force to undertake the final survey of all the identified lands while a P5 million fund was set aside to finance the survey.

“By all means we have to finish the final survey of these lands so we can save them from enterprising individuals and allot them for use of the public,” the mayor said.

During the meeting, it was also agreed that small parcels of land located in between a titled property and a road will automatically be made part of a greenbelt area and therefore will also be considered as no-build zones.

As to the lots covered by 211 titles, the mayor said the committee’s stand remains that there is no need to open those unvalidated for revalidation as doing so would create more trouble.

“As we all know, these unvalidated lots have long been made alienable and therefore are now occupied thus making them open for revalidation would pit old and new claimants against one another and would result to conflicts.  We would not want that to happen,” the mayor said.