The House Committee on Natural Resources has approved six bills declaring 13 sites in eight provinces as protected areas that are closed to commercial and large-scale exploitation.
Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. of Dasmariñas City in Cavite, committee chairman, said the 13 sites would be added to a long list of watersheds, hills, mountains, parks, forest lands, and natural landscapes declared protected under Republic Act 11038, or the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System (Enipas) Act of 2018.
According to Barzaga, the new protected sites cover a combined area of 332,456 hectares. The lawmaker said most of these areas have been subjected to commercial use for decades, and are now overexploited.
“We have to protect, regrow and preserve them for the benefit, enjoyment and appreciation of future generations of Filipinos. For instance, watersheds, hills and mountains are among our primary sources of water,” he said in a news statement.
The new areas proposed to be added to the Enipas list include Mount Arayat in the town of Arayat in Pampanga.
For his part, Deputy Speaker and Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr. of Pampanga’s third district, which covers Arayat, said the mountain “is currently facing environmental challenges, like illegal logging.”
“If no action is taken, it is only a matter of time before Mount Arayat degrades into an unrecoverable husk of landmass devoid of life. It could also become a natural hazard to people living within its periphery,” he said.
The 12 other additional protected areas are nine watersheds in Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro; a group of small islands in the town of Carles in Iloilo; the Tugbo watershed in the City of Masbate and the town of Mobo in Masbate; the Hinakpan Mystical Hills in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental; and the Tirad Pass landscape in Gregorio del Pilar, Quirino and the towns of Sigay, Cervantes and Suyo in Ilocos Sur.
The six bills have common provisions. If declared as protected areas, these specific areas will be placed under the supervision of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). A protected area management office headed by a protected area superintendent would be created to see to it that the sites would no longer subjected to destructive human practices.
Under the measures, funding for the management and protection of these areas would be included in the annual DENR budget.