THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is scrutinizing the details of a 2017 memorandum of agreement (MOA) it signed with the Masungi Georeserve operators to ensure its consistency with the country’s law for protected areas.
This was revealed by DENR-Region 4A Executive Director Nilo B. Tamoria during a news conference held last week with DENR OIC Secretary Jim O. Sampulna.
The agreement is being evaluated to ascertain its consistency with the provisions of Republic Act 11038, or the Expanded National Integrated Protected Area Systems (E-Nipas), which adopts strong amendatory measures to the 24-year old Nipas law.
The MOA covers the operation of an ecotourism park in Baras, Rizal, popularly known as “Masungi Georeserve,” which sits inside the 26,124-hectare Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape (UMRBPL)—one of the 94 protected areas declared under the E-NIPAS law.Tamoria said that the UPMRBPL Protected Area Management Board (PAMB), which he chairs, is holding special meetings to make a review of the MOA and “make recommendations on the way forward.”
The MOA covers an area of 300 hectares, which the Masungi Georeserve Foundation Inc. (MGFI) started operating in 2015 as an ecotourism park for public use.
In 2017, MGFI executives signed the MOA with then-DENR Secretary Regina Paz “Gina” L. Lopez for conservation efforts within the UPMRBPL covering 2,700 hectares, DENR documents showed.
The area covered under the 2017 MOA includes a portion of land, which is the subject of an ancestral domain claim.
The Dumagat-Remontados of Antipolo have a pending application for Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title or CADT covering some 13,000 hectares, or half of the 26,126-hectare total land area of the UMRBPL.
Several MOAs
THE area covered under the MOA is an offshoot of an earlier joint venture agreement entered into by former DENR Secretary Victor O. Ramos and Blue Star Development Corp. (BSDC) in 1997 for a housing project for government workers.
This was followed by a supplemental MOA in 2001 between BSDC and then DENR Secretary Heherson T. Alvarez.
The DENR took out its share from the joint venture agreement with BSDC in 2008.
Among the issues that need to be threshed out in the review of the MOA is whether the Masungi Georeserve “exempted” DENR Administrative Order 2018-05 signed by then-Secretary Roy A. Cimatu on March 15, 2018.
DENR Administrative Order 2018-05 (“Addendum to DENR Administrative Order 2017-17 on the Rules and Regulations Governing Special Uses within Protected Areas”) provides the guidelines and principles in determining development fees for access to, and sustainable use, of resources in PAs.
Under the new guideline, the DENR shall impose development fees based on the fixed percentage of the zonal value of the land and the improvement in the area.
The fees shall be equivalent to 5 percent of the most recent zonal value of the commercial zone in the nearest barangay or municipality where the project area is located, multiplied by the size of the area for development and 1 percent of the value of improvement as a premium to the protected area.
Values, fees
THE most recent zonal values prescribed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue for the commercial zone within the nearest barangay or municipality will be used as the basis for the computation of Special Use Agreement in Protected Areas (Sapa) development fees.
Under the same guideline, the fees are subject to evaluation every five years. The annual Sapa fee shall be paid upon issuance of the Sapa and annually thereafter within 30 days from the date of issuance.
The delinquent locators may be charged with surcharges for a late payment equivalent to 8.33 percent monthly, or 100 percent for one year of delay.
Also, the new guideline imposes an administrative fee of P5,000 for every Sapa application filed to cover the cost of examining, assessing, and processing the requirements submitted by development or project proponents relative to the application for a special-use agreement in a specific protected area.
The MGFI operates a low-impact ecotourism area within the UMRBPL, which it is mandated to rehabilitate. The MGFI exercises power and authority to impose ecotourism fees to visitors, which is inherently the same power and authority of the Protected Area Management Board of a protected area under the E-Nipas law.