Baguio watersheds to be protected from speculators
>> Thursday, September 26, 2019
CITY
HALL BEAT
Aileen
P. Refuerzo
BAGUIO CITY – Vast
tracts of forested land identified as protected zone in the Comprehensive Land
Use Plan (CLUP) of the city need to be protected from lot speculators.
During the management
committee (Mancom) meeting presided over by Mayor Benjamin Magalong Sept. 17, city
planning and development coordinator Evelyn Cayat said the public lands covered
with pine trees have larger aggregate area than the city’s parks.
Cayat said
these were designated as protected forest as a safeguard.
She assured
that the tracts of land have not been titled as the titling procedure would
require that documents pass through her office for the issuance of the
mandatory clearance.
She added
that the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had been properly
informed of the existence and situation of these protected zones being part of
the CLUP documents furnished the agency and it is assumed that the agency will
also work for their protection.
The inventory
will be turned over to the City Environment and Parks Management Office (CEPMO)
for adoption of measures to protect the land from encroachers.
CEPMO
Assistant Department Head Rhenan Diwas said that as part of their new programs,
they plan to clear forest reservations of shrubs and transform them into picnic
or hiking spots to make them accessible to people in the tradition of the Camp
John Hay forest reserve.
This is one
way of protecting the reservations from lot speculators as people visibility will
increase in these usually forlorn and inaccessible sites.
“With this
program, we hope that the people’s constant presence in these can be a
deterrent against squatters or the people themselves can help us guard them by
reporting squatting incidents,” Diwas said.
He said they
have scheduled massive clearing activities to start at the Pine Trees of the
World section and later at the Forbes Park and other reservations.
“The project
may be ambitious but doable,” Diwas said.
***
This, as the
city government is set on a program for regreening, beautification and
development of new parks and center islands and protection of forest
reservations.
These are
some of the revitalized programs in the pipeline of the City Environment and
Parks Management Office (CEPMO) as bared by newly installed Asst. CEPMO Officer
lawyer Rhenan Diwas.
Diwas who was
tasked by Mayor Benjamin Magalong as the city’s “champion” for the
revitalization of the environment told the Management Committee (ManCom)
meeting last Sept. 17 that the 200 CEPMO personnel with their collective skills
are prepared to rev up their environmental renewal programs anchored on
“aggressive regreening and beautification movement” in the coming months.
He said that
apart from the tree-planting activities being coordinated with the various
schools and groups at the various watersheds and forest reservations, the
CEPMO’s plan includes the regreening campaigns in the barangays.
For this
year, he said the office has programmed activities for Burnham Park-Legarda, Bayan
Park East, Bayan Park Village and Salud Mitra Barangays while succeeding ones
will be planned for the other villages in the coming years.
“Our
aim is to plant not only pine trees but also trees and plants of various
species in a more organized way and not just indiscriminately,” Diwas said.
He said a
champion team which he will head with City Tourism Officer Aloysius Mapalo will
oversee the regreening and beautification program and will also involve the
barangay officials and the Sangguniang Kabataan officials.
Another plan,
he said, will be the de-shrubbing of feasible areas in forest reservations for
conversion into and maintenance as picnic or hiking sites.
This way,
people will be able to access these areas for recreation purposes and their
visibility can serve as deterrent against lot speculators, Diwas said.
Also lined up
are the creation of new parks mostly eco-parks, promotion and improvement of
existing but unknown parks like the Bayan Park in Aurora Hill and improvement
of existing parks and center islands.
He said
eco-parks like bamboo parks and bonsai parks will be put up in identified sites
while the less popular parks will be spruced up and given distinct features
that will serve as come-ons for tourists and residents to come and rediscover them.
The office
will adopt a uniform concept for center islands while master development plans
will be made to improve the existing parks particularly the Botanical Garden to
maintain its bloom year-round in keeping with its name.
Mayor
Magalong expressed support to the plan along with the development of the Mines
View Park and the Tree Park near the Baguio Convention Center in cooperation
with the Government Service Insurance Service (GSIS) for which the City
Buildings and Architecture Office had drafted conceptual plans with programs of
work for implementation soon.
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