PPP in VIP but not in Masungi?

It’s bewildering to see how the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would seem to be cast as the villain in a war (of words and publicity) with conservationists that have taken upon themselves the arduous task of managing what is considered the country’s last “ark of biodiversity.”

The Dumaliangs, sisters Ann and Billie, co-founded in 2015 the Masungi Georeserve Foundation Inc. (MGFI) which, heretofore, has been taking care of the 2,700-hectare Masungi Georeserve on the slopes of the Sierra Madre some 30 miles from Manila in Rizal province.

Their father, developer Ben Dumaliang, recalls that the area was public land where the DENR in the 1990s wanted to build employee housing.

In 1996, Mr. Dumaliang’s company, Blue Star Construction and Development Corp. (BSCDC), won the bidding for the housing project. BSCDC began building roads in the area, but DENR encountered problems and wasn’t able to clear the land of settlers. Subsequently, the housing project was suspended primarily because the people the DENR intended to live there had lost interest.

Dumaliang’s daughters in 2015 set up MGFI to which their father’s BSCDC entrusted the care and management of the area. BSCDC also funded the foundation’s work and initiatives.

In 2017, DENR Secretary Regina Lopez, an avid environmentalist, drew up an agreement between the DENR and MGFI, granting the latter the right and obligation to reforest the area.

Since its inception, MGFI has received plaudits. It received a special commendation in the 2018 UN Convention on Biological Diversity and in 2022 it was given the prestigious UN Sustainable Development Goal Action Award for its efforts in protecting and restoring forests ravaged by commercial activities.

From the start, the Dumaliangs and those helping them do their work have faced grave threats from illegal settlers and land claimants, including the shooting of two of their volunteer rangers in July 2021.

The rangers survived the shooting but threats against the georeserve continue today.

These include the building by Rizal Wind Energy Corp. (owned by Singapore-based Vena Energy) of massive wind turbines, part of a wind farm intended to be built within the Masungi Karst Conservation Area (MKCA).

The MKCA is made up of centuries-old karst or limestone and other soft rocks vulnerable to erosion and which, since 1993, has been declared a nature reserve and wildlife sanctuary.

Explaining that the wind turbines posed a “fatal” threat to local bird and bat species, and ground disturbances in the area could trigger the collapse of sinkholes, MGFI urged the authorities to have the wind farm project relocated outside the MKCA.

Following a meeting with MGFI, Vena Energy in February 2024 halted all activities in the MKCA.

In 2023, the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) expressed interest in building a new national penitentiary complex within the Masungi Georeserve, following a presidential proclamation that granted it 270 hectares within the conservation area.

MGFI opposed this and the BuCor eventually suspended its plan. Later, BuCor Director General Gregorio Catapang, who was Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff under former President Benigno C. Aquino III, announced that the agency will establish instead a detachment facility for Masungi Georeserve’s forest rangers to safeguard its property.

But the biggest current threat, it seems at least to MGFI and its existence, now comes from the current DENR head who, on 3 April 2024, declared in a Senate hearing that the contract between the DENR under Gina Lopez and the MGFI is void ab initio (from the beginning).

Citing legality, DENR Secretary Ma. Antonia Loyzaga said what is contested in the contract between the DENR under Lopez and the MGFI is the provision that gave the latter “perpetual land trust for conservation.”

She cited the Department of Justice which “advised” that the perpetuity provision violates the 1987 Constitution which provides that such agreements must not exceed 25 years.

A defiant MGFI in response said, “The DENR can’t even safeguard our protected areas, and now they want to remove one of the leading organizations in conservation in the country?”

The MGFI, the Dumaliangs said, will stand by the validity of the agreement it signed with then DENR Secretary Lopez. “We are ready to defend the contract in any legal forum, we will pursue legal action when necessary.”

Recall the recent forging of a partnership between the DENR and three of the country’s biggest conglomerates to protect and conserve the Verde Island Passage.

Loyzaga hailed that accord as heralding a new era in public-private partnership (PPP) in the country.

In that regard, can’t she consider forging the same kind of partnership where protecting and conserving the Masungi Georeserve — which the World Economic Forum has dubbed the “last ark of biodiversity” in the Philippines — is concerned?