BY VANNE TERRAZOLA
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SENATOR Cynthia Villar on Tuesday asked the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to stop the reclamation plan in Bacoor City, Cavite due to its threats to the protected area and the communities along the coast of Manila Bay.
The chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources told the DENR to recall the environment compliance certificate (ECC) it issued to the 320-hectare Bacoor Reclamation and Development Project.
“The reclamation project will potentially cause irreparable damage to the Las Pinas-Parañaque Wetland Park. The project will be building on the buffer zone of this protected area and will destroy the landscape in which the wetland now thrives,” Villar said in a statement.
The senator said that under Republic Act 11038 or the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System (E-NIPAS) Act, which she sponsored, the 175-hectare wetland park was a declared protected area.
It was also recognized as one of the seven areas in the country listed as a Wetland of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention “because of its critical role in the survival of threatened, restricted-range and congregatory bird species,” she stressed.
Villar also warned about a “massive flooding” as she recalled the Department of Public Works and Highways saying that reclamation in this part of Manila Bay will cause flooding as high as eight meters in Las Piñas City.
She added that if the reclamation project pushes through, the flood-control projects in Bacoor and Imus worth P1.47 billion will be wasted.
Villar said flooding was one of the grounds that she, along with 315,000 residents of Las Piñas City, Parañaque City and Cavite, cited when they petitioned for Writ of Kalikasan against the planned reclamation of Manila Bay in 2012.
In 2017, the DENR cancelled the ECC issued to a similar reclamation plan in Parañaque and Las Piñas coastal bay for its potential harm the environment.
