By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Bontoc: first engagement
With the purpose of the group already set, the convenors invited other personalities to complete the fifteen incorporators required for registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). One of those who responded was lawyer Errol Comafay who not only happens to be an active member of the Kontra Mina, a national youth movement against destructive mining but also had a deep burden for the flagrant violations of Bontoc, Mt. Province of environmental laws through its open dump site (ODS) located on a mountainside overlooking the Chico River the base of which was on the bank of the river.. At that time, he was agonizing over the decision whether to take Bontoc which happens to be the hometown of his father to court all by himself or to wait for others to join the cause.
As it turned out, Comafay and the KAPAG crossed paths just at the right time. Comafay needed a group to back him up and the KAPAG needed a lawyer to take care of its legal battles. By the way, Legal Action is one of the five initial means to achieve its goals agreed upon by the KAPAG the others being Information and Education, Research and Data Gathering, Membership Expansion and Networking.
As circumstances would have it, in the context of the protracted attempt of the Kalingas leadership to have the controversial ODS of Bontoc closed, the entry of the KAPAG into the scene was timely. After a decade of protesting the dumping of wastes into the Chico River by Bontoc and negotiating in vain the cessation of the practice, Kalinga had run out of patience. During its meeting on June 11, the Kapehan sa Kapitolyo, the weekly forum of government executives in the province sponsored by the provincial LGU, had unanimously approved the recommendation of the Chico River Task Force (CRTF) to file a petition for Writ of Kalikasan against Bontoc and other LGUs dumping their waste into the Chico River. .
The Kapehan action came after the CRTF reported on its site investigation of the waste disposal violations of Bontoc and consultations with Mt. Province and Bontoc officials on May 22 and 23 stating that the continued operation of the ODS at barangay Caluttit violated some provisions of of . RA 9003 (Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000) and RA 4275 (Clean Water Act of 2004). The report also said the that Bontoc does not have an Ecological Solid Waste Management Plan (ESWM) as mandated by RA 9003.
The task force report to the Kapehan which is titled “Pollution of the Chico River: A Lingering Quesion” traced the series of initiatives made since May 23, 2003 when the Kalinga LGU first raised the issue of the dumping of wastes into the Chico River during a Regional Development Council (RDC) meeting in Tabuk. Since that time, the pollution of the Chico River was a recurrent issue in RDC meetings even as Kalinga entreated and negotiated with Bontoc. The only significant result of the efforts, however, was the construction of a temporary concrete containment structure around the lower edge of the dump some meters from the river bed in 2009. At the time of the decision to sue Bontoc, however, the structure had already been partially destroyed by a typhoon-induced swelling of the river.
Later, however, the provincial leadership decided that it was more prudent for a non-government organization to take the legal cudgels for the province thus KAPAG had its work cut out for it. **(To be continued)
