ILOILO CITY — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources 6 (DENR) has hired 15 environmental lawyers in a move to expedite the resolution of cases on the ground.
DENR-6 regional director Jim Sampulna in an interview Friday said the new environmental lawyers have been assigned to Provincial ENRs Offices (PENROs) in Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras, Iloilo and Negros Occidental.
Others have been deployed to Community ENR Offices (CENROs) towns of Sara, Barotac Nuevo, and Guimbal in Iloilo province; cities of Bago and Kabankalan and Cadiz town in Negros Occidental; towns of Belison and Culasi in Antique province; and Mambusao town in Capiz.
Sampulna said that they are targeting to hire additional lawyers particularly to be assigned in Boracay Island and Sipalay, Negros Occidental.
These environmental lawyers are tasked to ensure that cases against environmental law violators are properly initiated and prosecuted at the ground level.
“Secretary Cimatu (DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu) wants all the problems will be addressed on the ground, all the complaints and investigations will be resolved immediately at the ground,” Sampulna said.
He added that they are currently focusing on the compliance of local governments units on Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.
Sampulna emphasized that the establishment of sanitary landfill in every municipality remains a challenge.
He explained that Republic Act 9003 requires one sanitary landfill per municipality, which costs around PHP100,000 million to PHP200,000 million.
“They (LGUs) have difficulty in complying with it so we allow clustering of sanitary landfills wherein four to five nearby towns could combine as one cluster and contribute in the establishment of their sanitary landfill,” he said.
Aside from this, Sampulna said that they are also aiming to ensure land management, forest protection, national greening program, eco-systems research and development, climate change, geo-hazard and ground water assessments, responsible mining, clean air act, biodiversity management, solid waste management and clean water act. (Cindy Ferrer/PNA)
