“Diligence got us suspended”

Choco Hills PAMB dads say

CARMEN, Bohol, June 1 (PIA)—They diligently attended management board meetings of the protected area where their barangays belong, they haggled with the environment department representatives to keep their people from getting evicted from their lands since time immemorial, and for that, they get a six months suspension.

“Wala koy kalibutan, walay nagfile, walay nag-imbestigar, pero wala tay mahimo, sunod na lang ta sa Ombudsman,” Villaflor, Carmen Barangay Captain Perfecto Burro, commenting on the suspension order that would deprive him of the honorarium for frontlining government services.

Still clueless as to what got him into the sights of the Ombudsman, Burro, who got a mild stroke a few months after taking his oath of office as chairman, said he has continued to work for the legalization of his constituent’s claims of the land by also mediating with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to get copies of tax declarations and process tile claims.

Sharing during an interview with the media four days after Bohol Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado announced he is humbly taking the suspension order the Ombudsman served on him and 68 other officials, Burro said the new Protected areas law slammed the doors shut for him and his people.

While the governor got suspended for being the sitting governor, including Burro thinks he got suspended for sitting at the local Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) of the Chocolate Hills Natural Monument.

Bernadez

Apparently resigned to their fate getting the 6 months preventive suspension without pay, Burro, along with La Victoria Carmen Captain Querino Aparicio, Poblacion Vieja Batuan Chairman Emmanuel Jumawid, Santa Cruz Batuan Chairman Ian Bernadez and Cantigdas Batuan Chairman Gerardo Salcez have only one shortcoming: regularly attending the PAMB meetings.

For Chairman Burro, all he knew he did was to help his constituents get the proper documents that could legitimize their claims of the land they and their ancestors have been occupying, centuries before the National Integrated Protected Areas Systems and the Expanded NIPAS Law came to be implemented.

Long bonded to the land as tenants of the Dano estates, a big portion of Villaflor has been awarded by the agrarian reform law to farmers, who have since farmed the lands until the law meant to protect the Chocolate Hills landscapes came about and threatened to kick them out by application of the protected area law.

“Mas maayo pay absenot, wala pa sila maapil,” La Victoria Barangay Chairman Querino Aparicio also bemoaned, noting that he and his family anxiously wait for the official copy of the preventive suspension.

Fifty-two years old and into his last term, Aparicio said at least getting his copy of the Ombudsman’s order allows him to start processing the change of signatories in the barangay’s financial transactions.

In his barangay are about ten Chocolate Hills, most of them titled or claimed by tax declarations, until the NIPAS act restricts the owners development of the land their parents have claimed since.

The case of Cantigdas Batuan is yet another story.

A barangay in the plains of the town, there are no hills that are technically Chocolate Hills here, but since the NIPAS Act places the whole town under protection.

“Nasobrahan ra, pamati nako,” Gerardo Salcez said meaning the 6 months preventive suspension.

“Wala sila makakita sa kahimtang dire, daghan ang namuyo sa ibabaw sa mga bungtod, unsa may atong buhaton, ipakanaug na nato sila?” he asked as he continued, “kami, mga victims ra jud mi ani.”

Without seeing yet his suspension, Salcez said he would still function as stopping would be depriving the barangay of his sworn services.

His diligence could have been his downfall, as he has sworn to be in all PAMB meetings since then.

Emmanuel Jumawid, 43 years old of Poblacion Vieja, Batuan was in fact, pushed into his suspension.

Elected as first councilor, he rose to the occasion being the barangay chairman when the elected chairman migrated to Canada, he got his job and the PAMB representative which led to his suspension.

“Nasuspendir mi tungod kay buotan mi,” highlighting his advocacy to have the government officially identify and delineate the areas under protection, so the residents could farm whatever is left.

“Wala mi laing panginabuhian, panguma ra gyud,” he stressed, “unsaon man nako pagpasabut sa mga tawo sa mga notice of violations nga ilang nadawat?”

After the senate hearing called when the issue of Captain’s Peak went viral, the DENR has sent people to deliver notices of violations to the structure owners built within the barangay.

There is in fact a reason why residents are mad, added Batuan Association of Barangay Chairmen and Santa Cruz, captain said.

The same week when the people received their notices of violations for building in protected areas, people started burning the hills, a phenomena that had the town fire trucks on alert. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

OVERCOOKED. Residents who have been settling within the newly declared protected areas who received their notices of violations have vented their rage in the hills, by burning them, the town firemen have to be on alert to contain any grassfire that erupts simultaneously with in the protected areas. (PIABohol)

PEEKING OVER THE TREES. Chocolate Hills, which have become national monument, is now protected against abuse. But what happens to those who can show titles of ownership to these hills, can these documents be simply be voided by the national protection law? What about the plains which fall under the protection law, can these be simply left to idle, depriving the owners of the right to grow their food? (PIABohol)