Heritage custodians

From the air, the Chocolate Hills of Bohol are a wondrous sight to behold.

The 1,776 conical mounds turn brown and look like chocolate kisses during summer when the vegetation dries out. When the mounds are green, what do you call them? Greenhills.

 As usual, Pinoys are cracking jokes about the controversy that has erupted over the construction of a resort with a large swimming pool and water slide at the foot of one of the mounds in Sagbayan, one of three towns straddled by the Chocolate Hills complex.

It’s a private property called Captain’s Peak Garden and Resort. Last Thursday, the resort shut down without waiting to be served a closure order that was supposedly issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) way back in September last year, but which the local government claims it never received.

The resort owner has been identified as Captain Edgar Button. We don’t know if he served in the military or police, or if he’s captain of a ship or aircraft, or if he’s a barangay captain.

Fifteen of the 26 barangay captains in Sagbayan, plus the municipal government and (most critically) the DENR’s local Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) gave the green light for the construction and operation of the resort, according to the manager, Button’s younger sister Julieta Sablas.

 A 2018 resolution of the PAMB, Sablas said, merely set certain conditions for operation, one of which is that the hills “should not be altered nor defaced and extraction is strictly prohibited.” Strictly speaking, the resort has complied with this provision. Does it cover the ground surrounding the mounds?

What remains lacking, however, is an environmental clearance certificate from the DENR. Since the resort has been open since 2019, Sagbayan officials clearly didn’t think an ECC is a requirement for operating a private resort in an area that was designated on June 18, 1988 as the Philippines’ third National Geological Monument, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

In 1997, then president Fidel Ramos issued a proclamation designating the Chocolate Hills as a Protected Landscape.

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Amid the controversy, the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines has added seven new sites in the country to the World Heritage Tentative List. This brings to 25 the total submitted by Unacom to the World Heritage Center.

Since 2006, the Tentative List has included the Chocolate Hills. We don’t know how the ongoing controversy will affect the site’s nomination for inscription as a World Heritage Site.

Among the seven new sites added to the Tentative List is the Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary in Agusan del Sur, which since 1999 has been designated as a Ramsar wetland of international importance, protected under the 1975 Ramsar Convention.

That protection did nothing for Lolong, officially recognized as the world’s largest crocodile ever caught. Lolong was fished out of his natural habitat in the marsh in September 2011 on suspicion of eating humans and water buffaloes. He was put on public display in a pool, as the main attraction at the Bunawan Ecopark. Little wonder that the poor beast became so stressed and reportedly suffered from depression. On Feb. 10, 2013, Lolong was found dead due to cardiac arrest and pneumonia aggravated by a fungal infection and stress.

Designation as a World Heritage Site or an area protected under international conventions such as Ramsar, apart from boosting tourism, gives the country access to foreign funding in protecting the site.

The controversy over private property development in the Chocolate Hills illustrates how challenging the task of preserving such sites can be in our country.

With devolution (plus the Supreme Court ruling that gave local government units a larger share in national revenues), many LGUs behave like independent republics, ignoring orders from national agencies except the Office of the President. As we saw during the COVID pandemic, even the OP can be ignored.

LGUs don’t bother looking at the big picture, focusing instead on local needs of raising revenues, creating livelihood opportunities and employment. We are seeing this in the local reactions to the shutdown of Captain’s Peak.

This kind of mindset in tourism development is not unique to the LGUs with jurisdiction over the Chocolate Hills. The worst is when development projects such as roads and bridges are geared to favor the enterprises of the family that dominates local politics.

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The focus on local and, worse, personal interests makes it impossible for the country to have the kind of nationally coordinated tourism development such as those in major travel destinations in our region, notably China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam.

 Our country is blessed with rich natural attractions, which individuals and groups want to hog for their private enjoyment or profit. The best beaches and mountain areas with panoramic views are quickly taken over by private developers usually belonging to the family of the provincial governor, the mayor or even the barangay captain.

In Metro Manila, just look at how the sunset in Manila Bay is now obscured along Roxas Boulevard by an ugly fence, with an ugly fake battle tank and an equally ugly building for the DENR itself, built right smack on the shore, violating easement laws and blocking the view from the road.

While Malacañang is making noises about boosting fisheries, fisherfolk in Bulacan are complaining that they are starting to lose their livelihoods and suffering from massive flooding during the typhoon season, which they attribute to the development of a new airport that will rival the already existing one nearby in Clark, Pampanga. 

Massive reclamation is plaguing not only Manila Bay but also Laguna de Bay, a source of potable water and fish for Greater Manila. From Lower Bicutan in Taguig all the way to Taytay in Rizal, the lake view has disappeared from what is supposed to be scenic Circumferential Road 6, replaced by unsightly reclaimed areas that include highly polluting construction enterprises. 

Before these establishments kill the bay, the DENR should ask the Laguna Lake Development Authority about the reclamation frenzy parallel to C-6, which is sure to affect the lake ecosystem.

The DENR can coordinate with the Department of the Interior and Local Government about the disappearing lake. Those reclamation projects can cause massive flooding and destroy Laguna de Bay. Fishing is already endangered by massive reclamation around Manila Bay.

A multisectoral dialogue is needed to balance economic development with the protection of our national (and world) heritage. Sustainable development, with national and local coordination, can complement heritage preservation.