RIZAL, Kalinga – In the wake of the publication in the journal Nature of the archaeological study that early man walked this locality 709,000 years ago, Mayor Marcelo dela Cruz Jr. has called upon concerned government agencies to assist the local government unit (LGU) to protect the archaeological site and to have it delineated immediately.
He also asked the Kalinga LGU to affirm the municipal ordinance mandating the apprehension of intruders in the area.
Dela Cruz said that the Elephants Hill in sitio Greenhills of barangay San Pedro where the skeletal remains of a rhinoceros with cuts made by stone tools were unearthed by local and foreign archaeologists in 2014 is not only being threatened by squatters but by personnel from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) who are working for its distribution.
He said that while Presidential Decree No. 1109 issued on March 28, 1977 had declared the archaeological areas in Cagayan Valley region and in the provinces of Kalinga and Apayao as archaeological reservations and Republic Act No. 10561 which declares the entire province of Kalinga as tourism development area (TDA) approved on May 17, 2013 has specified the Elephant Hill, the laws did not give the metes and bounds of the reservation.
Dela Cruz said that as early as 2013, he has already written the DENR, the Department of Tourism (DOT), the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) to assist the LGU in the delineation of the site.
The Rizal LGU has to assert its jurisdiction over Elephant Hills time and again, according to the mayor.
He related that sometime in 2013, upon hearing that outsiders who happened to be the group of foreign and local archaeological researchers behind the study, he had the police bring the team to his office for questioning.
He said he found from them that their permit from the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) was addressed to Solana, Cagayan so he informed them that based on the cadastral map of Solana, the site is outside the territory of that town.
He said that when the team then composed of Thomas Ingicco, Mylene Lising, Maria Kathryn Manalo and Abigail Castro of University of the Philippines-Archeological Studies Program (UP-ASP), Johnie de Vos and Paulinus Albers of Naturalis, George Lyras of the University of Athens and Gerrit Vadenberg of the University of Wollongono came back for their next digging activity the following year, the permit was already addressed to Rizal.
Dela Cruz would also later write the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) questioning the application of Solana for the declaration of the dig site as a World Heritage Site telling the body that the site is in Kalinga territory.
He also said that sometime later, he sent the police to stop a team from the DENR provincial office who was surveying the area for purposes of disposition to claimants.
The mayor also disclosed that the LGU found it necessary to enact an ordinance prohibiting entry into the reservation and post personnel to guard the site from encroachment which he believes would now intensify with the release of the results of the research.
This reporter tried but failed to reach the DENR for comment.
Dela Cruz has donated a three-hectare area in his estate in barangay Rumualdez as location for the proposed Rizal Archeological Research Center.
Dela Cruz reasoned that while the donated land is some 15 kilometers from Elephant Hill, it is along the Tuguegarao City to Roxas, Isabela highway where people could easily drop by and may be led to visit the site.
He said that the design of the research center is now being prepared by the group of Lising and a request for funding is now pending with the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA).
Dela Cruz said that the plan includes an NMP-standard design museum where the fossils and artifacts found in the Elephant Hill would be displayed clarifying that the original finds will just be “on loan” from the NMP.
Dela Cruz said that a road to San Pedro is now being constructed and concreted and that a sort of a bridge from which visitors could stand and view the diggings “but not touché them” would soon be erected on the site.
The mayor said with the confirmation from archaeological authorities that Rizal has been the home of the oldest early human in the country, he hopes that the vision of the LGU that in 20 years it will become another tourist destination in the Cordillera on the strength of being the site of an important archaeological discovery will materialize.
Before the publication of the discovery in Nature on May 2, the Callao Man whose foot bone was unearthed in the Callao Cave in nearby Penablanca, Cagayan in 2007 was believed to be the oldest early human presence in the country at 67,000 years old. **Estanislao Albano, Jr.
