BAGUIO CITY – The city council agreed to hold a special session on June 17, 2016 to deliberate on the final contents of the city’s environment code that will warrant its passage before June 30, 2016, the end of the term of the current members of the local legislative body.
The council wants that the proposed environment code will strictly focus on the preservation and protection of the city’s air, land, water and forest reservations while issues on mining, ancestral lands, critical slopes among others, will be left to the coverage of existing national and local laws.
The proposed environment code has been pending before the city council since 2003 and has undergone several revisions through several administrations, including by the current council, in order to reflect current realities and standards before it will be approved by the council.
In order to get inputs from the councilors and representatives of concerned regional line agencies and city departments, the council decided to invite representatives from the Cordillera offices of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) and city department heads, specifically the city building official, city planning and development coordinator, city environment and parks management officer, city engineer among others.
As an initial step, the council decided to omit provisions in the environment code in relation to the imposition of total ban on mining, the imposition of building height limit, ancestral lands, and may include the provisions on critical slopes considering that there are already existing laws that govern such matters.
Members of the Baguio Regreening Movement (BRM) and other interest groups vowed to monitor developments on the proposed environmental code until it will be approved during the scheduled regular session of the council.
It was learned that Baguio City is the only city in the country which does not yet have an approved environment code despite local residents being environmental-friendly and conscious of ensuring the beneficial state of the environment for the present and future generations.
The existence of an updated environment code is one of the criteria of the National Competitiveness Commission in the judging of competitiveness of local governments, particularly in terms of economy dynamism, governance and infrastructure development.
The council has still three remaining regular session days before its current members will end their three-year term noon of June 30, 2016 after which the new set of city officials will assume office.
The city’s environment code is a local legislation that will help efforts among local residents and concerned stakeholders to preserve and protect the environment from being damaged by rapid urbanization, among other factors, due to the influx of migrants in search of livelihood.
By Dexter A. See
