Press Release
July 6, 2007

Taal issue a 'social volcano' waiting to erupt, says Pia

The controversy surrounding the Taal resort spa is, quite literally, a social volcano that had been waiting to erupt.

On this note, Senator Pia S. Cayetano lauded the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for finally deciding to revoke the environmental clearance certificate (ECC) of the Korean firm undertaking the controversial P72-million Taal resort spa project.

But the issue should not end there, she stressed, as the controversial project also brought up the issue of "ownership" of the world's smallest volcano, as well as the status of the country's 105 protected areas which also face similar threats.

Cayetano hopes the incident will prompt the the DENR to look deeper into reports about the proliferation of fake land titles around Taal and its adjoining areas, particularly Tagaytay.

The lady senator had earlier questioned how private individuals were able to acquire land titles to the volcano when the latter should be part of the public domain, and was even declared a protected landscape in 1996.

"If a project like that can get clearance to be built on an active and unpredictable volcano like Taal despite the obvious hazards, then what more for our other protected areas?" she asked.

Cayetano said ecological balance in most proclaimed protected areas is under threat from logging, mining, poaching and urbanization.

"The environment situation in the Philippines can be likened to a field full of land mines, with each protected area ready to explode with just one wrong step."

It is for this reason that Cayetano has recently re-filed 16 bills declaring different landscapes, watersheds and marine sanctuaries across the archipelago as protected areas at the opening of the 14th Congress.

She noted that of the 105 proclaimed protected areas in the country, only ten have been officially declared through a law enacted by Congress.

These include the Batanes Islands and Northern Sierra Madre in Luzon; Mt. Kanlaon and the Sagay Marine Reserve in the Visayas; and Mt. Apo, Mt. Kitanglad, Mt. Malindang and Mt. Hamuiguitan in Mindanao.

The two most recent additions are the protected area laws covering the Cebu Central Landscape in Cebu province and the Mimbilisan Watershed in Misamis Oriental. Cayetano sponsored both measures in the 13th Congress, along with Senators Serge Osmena and Aquilino Pimentel Jr., respectively.

"We still have a long way to go. Even if we get to pass all these bills, there would still be more than 70 areas which are not yet governed by a specific law."

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