The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) had ordered 31 occupants to voluntarily vacate the foreshore areas in Barangays Andagao and Pook in Kalibo, Aklan.
Aklan Provincial ENR Officer Ivene Reyes issued the notice to vacate on October 24 for illegal occupation and prohibited stay of occupants in foreshore areas facing the Sibuyan Sea.
The Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 defines “foreshore” as a “string of land margining a body of water; the part of a seashore between the low water line usually as the seaward margin of a low tide terrace and the upper limit of wave wash at high tide usually marked by a beach scarp or berm.”
Citing laws and regulations on foreshore lands use and management, DENR has given the occupants 15 days upon receipt of the notices to vacate the area and to remove the structures.
Months ago, several structures made of concrete and light materials were constructed within the ‘no build zone’ as declared by the Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2014-1 issued last April 4, 2014.
The Barangay Pook council also expressed alarm over the sprouting of structures and the opening up of business small-type resorts along the side of Pook, which are about 100 meters away from the provincial government’s Pook sea port project.
Also, thousands of talisay and malabago seedlings planted in the foreshore areas for the National Greening Program (NGP) to protect the villages were allegedly uprooted.
DENR also anchored its notices to vacate by citing Article 51 of Presidential Decree (PD) No. 1067, otherwise known as The Water Code of the Philippines that “no person shall be allowed to stay in the zone longer than what is necessary for recreation, navigation, frottage, fishing or salvage or to build structures of any kind.”
The national agency also presented Commonwealth Act No. 141 or the Public Land Act governing the disposition of lands of the public domain and Paragraph 4 of Lands Administrative Order No. 8-3, series of 1936 (as amended) as legal basis for the issuance of notice to vacate.
BY BOY RYAN B. ZABAL
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