Guba cemetery bid gets thumbs down
We have to immediately identify burial sites that are outside protected areas, and will pose no harm to the immediate community
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary and Cebu Task Force on COVID-19 overseer Roy Cimatu has turned down Cebu City officials’ bid to construct a public cemetery in a protected area in Barangay Guba and directed them to use a more suitable area in Barangay Sapangdaku instead.
The proposed site for the cemetery, which is within Central Cebu Protected Landscape and a watershed area, was thumbed down by the DENR 7 Protected Areas Management Board through a resolution pursuant to the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 2018 and the Sanitation Code of the Philippines.
Cimatu said while he recognized the city’s growing need for burial sites following the increase in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and fatalities, the site selected by the Cebu City Government might pose even higher risks as it will affect Cebu’s most
important water source since the proposed cemetery will be built within a watershed area.
For as long as it can comply with all the environmental requirements because putting up a cemetery is an undertaking that requires a more delicate environmental compliance under environmental laws, so it is all right with me.
He then directed the City Government to look into the alternative two-hectare Sapangdaku site and committed to assist them by organizing a technical working group composed of the Environmental Management Bureau, the Mines and Geosciences Bureau and the Department of Health to fasttrack the processing of documentary requirements needed for the construction.
“We have to immediately identify burial sites that are outside protected areas, and will pose no harm to the immediate community,” Cimatu said.
The Cebu City Government has been is under fire after it commenced the illegal cutting of 389 mahogany trees in the Guba site development last week, with the DENR calling them for an administrative adjudication on 27 July 2020 to explain the matter.
The DENR, which ordered the City to stop the tree-cutting activity, was able to prevent the felling of more than 1,000 mahogany trees and warned the City against developing the site without a Protected Area Management Plan and without applying for an environmental compliance certificate.
Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella expressed his agreement to Cimatu’s decision.
“For as long as it can comply with all the environmental requirements because putting up a cemetery is an undertaking that requires a more delicate environmental compliance under environmental laws, so it is all right with me,” Labella said.
Earlier, Cebu City lawyer and Labella spokesman Rey Gealon said the cutting of trees came with a verbal approval from the DENR, while the tree-cutting permits were not necessary since mahogany trees are not considered as endangered species.