PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Palawan — Governor Jose Alvarez expressed full support on Tuesday to the ongoing Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) clean-up drive against easement zone violators in the controversial town of El Nido, northern Palawan.
Alvarez, who reacted to the ongoing crackdown in El Nido for the first time, said he favors the DENR’s decision to order 32 business establishments to self-demolish their illegal structures since this is what he has been saying all along.
“Pabor [ako]. Wala namang pulitika sa akin yan dahil sinabi ko na noong araw sa kanila, eh. Alam mo kung kelan ko sinabi yan? Noong natalo ako noong 2010… sabi ko, one day magsisisi kayo dahil ginawa niyong pati yong dagat nilagyan niyo [ng structures] (I am in favor. There is no politics for me about that because I have been telling them about it all along. You know when I told them that? When I lost in 2010… I told them, one day, you will regret this because you even put your structures in the sea),” Alvarez said in a press conference.
He said they had already started the construction of a PHP300 million sewage treatment plant in El Nido to ensure that it would adhere to proper waste disposal management and avoid polluting its coastal waters.
“To clean up the waters in El Nido, otherwise, it will be like Boracay, and El Nido will become useless,” Governor Alvarez added.
At the regular session of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan also on Tuesday, Mayor Nieves Rosento of El Nido, reported to the board members that the presence of coliform reported in 2014 had already declined.
To ensure further decline, she said an amount of PHP27 million collected from environmental fees would be used to set up septage and sewerage management treatment facilities.
On Monday, the DENR in Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan or Region 4-B) had started the delivery of notices of violations to 32 El Nido establishments whose structures have breached the three-meter from the highest tide easement zone. (Celeste Anna Formoso/PNA)
