DENR cancels agreement with controversial SBSI

Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga on Monday announced the cancellation of the Protected Area Community-Based Resource Management Agreement (PACBRMA) with the controversial Socorro Bayanihan Services Incorporated (SBSI) community in Siargao.

Loyzaga in a press conference at the DENR main office said, "the DENR has canceled the PACBRMA with SBSI for violating the provisions of the tenurial instrument awarded in June 2004 covering 353 hectares in the Siargao Island Protected Landscape and Seascape (SIPLAS) in Surigao del Norte."

The DENR, she said canceled the PACBRMA No. 74007 entered into with SBSI, citing violations that included "the establishment of settlement in the PACBRMA area, the establishment of checkpoints strictly regulating the entry of non-members, failure to submit the required monthly, quarterly, or annual reports about the implementation of its Community-based Resource Management Plan (CRMP), the establishment of infrastructure such as new access roads, communal quadrangle with a basketball court, volleyball court, and a stage with bleacher, wave pool, recording studio, radio station, gymnasium, landscaping, and monuments" that are not included in the CRMP.

"Protected areas are critical habitat (of endangered species). The improvements are not part and parcel of their (SBSI) privileges," Loyzaga said, pointing out that the community headed by Jey Rence B. Quilario, more commonly known by his alias as Senior Agila, SBSI president, has even put up a wave pool in the area.

Senior Agila was the subject of wider public attention in September 2023, when the group under his leadership faced allegations of sexual abuse and for being a cult.

Loyzaga said the DENR has been working with the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and the provincial government since the suspension of the said PACBRMA in September 2023.

"It's a unique situation, (and) also have social issues. There are also psycho-social violations. We have to work on (SBSI) integration, find ways for the community to have a relocation (housing settlement)," Loyzaga explained.

She added that currently, the national government agencies previously mentioned were working on the reintegration and resettlement of affected occupants as there are 404 households of 'tenured migrants' in the said PACBRMA area that will be relocated.

PACBRMA is an agreement entered into by and between the DENR and organized, tenured migrant communities or interested indigenous peoples in protected areas and buffer zones which has a term of twenty-five (25) years and renewable for another twenty-five (25) years.

Following the approved CRMP for 2010-2014, the DENR awarded SBSI an initial 122 hectares within its PACBRMA area in 2010 to develop the site for agroforestry and assisted natural regeneration (ANR).

This was followed by an additional 69 hectares for indigenous tree plantation in 2011.

As early as August 2019, a monitoring and investigation team of the DENR confirmed the establishment of houses and other residential structures that were prohibited in the CRMP.

After repeated advice to SBSI to secure permits for the structures not covered by CRMP in the same month, and subsequently on June 2021, December 2022, and September 2023, DENR issued a suspension letter to SBSI on 29 September 2023, over improvements and structures in the area that are not under the Protected Area Management Plan and without PAMB.

Under the Republic Act No. 7586 or the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act of 1992 and Executive Order No. 263 (Adopting Community-Based Forest Management as the National Strategy to Ensure the Sustainable Development of the Country's Forestlands Resources and Providing Mechanisms for its Implementation), the DENR is mandated to promote the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable development in protected areas and buffer zones to maintain essential ecological processes and life support systems which will enhance people's capacity to sustain human life and development, as well as plants and animals.

Towards this end, the DENR provides tenured migrant communities and interested indigenous peoples within protected areas and buffer zones, tenure over established CBP areas, provided that the activities to be undertaken are consistent with the Protected Area Management Plan (PAMP).

Aside from the violations of SBSI on the issued PACBRMA, SBSI has been the subject of a senate hearing on the Committee of Public Order and Dangerous Drugs chaired by Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa on alleged qualified trafficking in persons, facilitation of child marriage, solemnization of child marriage, and child abuse charges.

As a result of the information filed by the DOJ, a warrant of arrest has been issued by the Regional Trial Court Branch 31 of Dapa, Surigao del Norte against SBSI president Quilario alias Senior Agila and 12 other officers on said offenses.