Thirteen barangays up for segregation from John Hay

By Dexter See

BAGUIO CITY -- The 13 remaining barangays within the 625-hectare Camp John Hay watershed reservation will be segregated once mode of segregation is put in place.

Officials of the state-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority and its subsidiary the John Hay Management Corp. said the government still prioritizes segregation of the brangays.           

Engineer Bobby Akia, who represented JHMC during the regular session of the City Council, said he will still present to BCDA officials proposed version of the local government on segregation process and JHMC’s position which actually does not conflict with each other although there are some things that need to be threshed out before segregation.

The local legislative body invited BCDA and JHMC officials to get their commitments on government’s stand on the condition of the local government for BCDA to exclude the 13 barangays within the CJH reservation as part of the 19 conditions imposed by the city for the development of the former American military base into a world-class tourism and recreation center.

Councilors expressed disappointment over failure of segregation process despite two decades since privatization of the 247-hectare John Hay Special Economic Zone (JHSEZ).

Resolution No. 362, series of 1994 stipulated 19 conditions of the local government for the privatization of the JHSEZ and one of the conditions was the supposed segregation of the 14 barangays within the CJH watershed from the said reservation.

However, only the portions of Scout Barrio, which is one of the barangays within the watershed, were segregated from the reservation while other barangays were subjected to structural and pertinent surveys related to the identification of the metes and boundaries of the concerned barangays.

Councilors urged consultations with city officials for harmonization of plans on how to undertake the segregation process.

For his part, Akia sought the help of city officials to request the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to furnish the JHMC with the results of its cadastral survey over the reservation for the BCDA subsidiary to align how to implement the segregation process of the 13 barangays.

The local legislative body also requested the JHMC to furnish the local government and the concerned barangays with the results of the survey undertaken during the previous administration for them to come out with their recommendations on how to smoothly implement the process during the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Some barangay officials admitted they were furnished with the results of the structural survey while other barangay officials claimed they were not provided a copy of the survey results, thus, the need for JHMC to be clear on the matter before pursuing the next step for the segregation of the barangays.