BAGUIO CITY April 04 – The State-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) and its subsidiary, the John Hay Management Corporation (JHMC), said the government still prioritizes the segregation of the 13 remaining barangays within the 625-hectare Camp John Hay (CJH) watershed reservation after the present leadership shall have given the go-signal for the agreed mode of segregation have been put in place.
Engr. Bobby Akia, who represented JHMC during the regular session of the City Council last Monday, said that he will still present to BCDA officials the proposed version of the local government on the segregation process and the JHMC’s position which actually do not conflict with each other although there are some things that need to be threshed out before pursuing the segregation of the concerned barangays.
The local legislative body invited BCDA and JHMC officials to get their commitments on the government’s stand on the condition of the local government for BCDA to exclude the 13 barangays within the CJH reservation as part of the 19 conditions imposed by the city for the development of the former American military base into a world-class tourism and recreation center.
Local legislators expressed their disappointment over the failure of the segregation process of the 13 barangays to be completed despite the lapse of over two decades since the privatization of the 247-hectare John Hay Special Economic Zone (JHSEZ).
Resolution No. 362, series of 1994 stipulates the 19 conditions of the local government for the privatization of the JHSEZ and one of the conditions was the supposed segregation of the 14 barangays within the CJH watershed from the said reservation.
However, only the portions of Scout Barrio, which is one of the barangays within the watershed, were segregated from the reservation while other barangays were subjected to structural and pertinent surveys related to the identification of their metes and bounds.
Members of the local legislative body pressed for the conduct of continuous consultations with the city officials for the harmonization and synchronization of plans on how to undertake the segregation process.
For his part, Akia sought the help of city officials to request the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to furnish the JHMC with the results of its cadastral survey over the reservation for the BCDA subsidiary to align how to implement the segregation process of the 13 barangays.
The local legislative body also requested the JHMC to furnish the local government and the concerned barangays with the results of the survey undertaken during the previous administration for them to come out with their recommendations on how to smoothly implement the process during the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Some barangay officials admitted they were furnished with the results of the structural survey while other barangay officials claimed they were not provided a copy of the survey results, thus, the need for JHMC to be clear on the matter before pursuing the next step for the segregation of the barangays.**By Dexter A. See
