Press Release
April 6, 2008

Loren: Spare Subic

SEN. Loren Legarda said on Monday she would call for a "thorough investigation" into reports that the construction of two high-rise condominium buildings by a Korean company in the Subic rainforest may have violated environmental laws.

An environmental advocate, Loren said an investigation was in order in view of possible adverse implications of the construction and occupation of the building complex within the protected watershed area.

In a statement, Loren raised questions like: One, why allow the erection of the buildings in the Subic Watershed Forest Reserve, one of the 10 priority sites of the National Integrated Protected Areas System, and noted for its high biodiversity and endemism?

This lowland dipterocarp forest, she added, covers approximately 9,800 hectares, 3,000 hectares of which is closed canopy. Two, how did Korea firm Hanjin shipbuilder Hanjin Heavy Industries & Construction Ltd. acquire the right to the land and to build from it if its true, as Sen. Richard Gordon alleged, that the construction site located within the Subic Watershed Forest Reserve, was declared protected for "purposes of protecting, maintaining, or improving its water yield and providing a restraining mechanism for inappropriate forest exploitation and disruptive land use."

Calling the construction a travesty, Gordon said his successor at the SBMA did away with the Americans' careful environmental zoning and planning, which he himself had strictly followed.

Loren, vice chairman of the Senate committee on environment, said there is urgency in preserving the Subic Rainforest because it is a habitat of various species of wondrous flora and fauna, 745 plant species by preliminary count, three of these are endangered and four are potentially threatened.

She said the forest which serves as a refuge for Aetas who depend on the forest resources for their survival was protected for more than 50 years under the jurisdiction of the Americans during the US Naval Base period.

Quoting a report from the SBMA, Loren said the forest is home to over 10,000 fruit bats, making it one of the last large bat colonies of its kind. Found only in the Philippines, the Golden Crowned Flying Fox and the Philippine Giant Fruit Bat are the largest bats in the world, with wingspans up to 2 meters."

The bats aid in the pollination of many fruit crops important to people and for the reproduction of forest plants, she said.

Tropical rainforests mitigate climate change impacts by slow down global warming. They trap more CO2 and evaporate more H2O that produce clouds that reflect sunlight back to space. Called the lungs of the world, they release large amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere, she added.

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