A panel in the House of Representatives has approved a bill that seeks to conserve, protect and develop the remaining forest resources in the province of Tarlac as part of an overall plan to have a forest land boundary delineation for the whole country.
Rep. Arnel Ty of LPGMA party-list, chairman of the House committee on natural resources, said his committee has deliberated on measures that would introduce reforms and policies on natural resources, one of which is House Bill 6060.
The bill is authored by Tarlac Reps. Carlos Cojuangco, Victor Yap and Noel Villanueva. They said the province's permanent forest estate will cover approximately 90,752.95 hectares of forest land composed of 16 forest land blocks (Blocks A-P) in the municipalities of Mayantoc, San Clemente, Gerona, San Jose, Bamban and Capas.
At a congressional hearing, Ray Thomas Kabigting of the Forest Management Bureau said there is a pending bill in Congress proposing a forest land boundary delineation for the whole country.
“What some lawmakers did is they submitted a bill for their own district to delineate forest land in their own districts. But this bill is for the whole Philippines; if passed, the whole country would be delineated into Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao,” said Kabigting.
Cojuangco said forestland conditions and their uses change over time, and there is a need to identify what has been used not only for forestry purposes but also to facilitate the balancing of development requirements for the preservation of the environment.
Ground points provided by the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority are existing, Cojuangco said, and are the basis for establishing these boundaries, which would still be surveyed after the passage of the bill.
The bill seeks to establish the forest boundary of the province of Tarlac. It declares the State policy to conserve, protect and develop the forest resources of the country in order to attain ecological balance, preserve valuable ecosystems, prevent environment degradation, and promote sustainable development for the present and future generations.
To achieve the, Section 4, Article XII of the Constitution mandates Congress to determine by law the specific limits of forestland marking clearly their boundaries on the ground.
Section 3 of the bill provides that all alienable and disposable lands of the public domain which have been the subject of the land classification system and declared as no needed forest purpose.
The bill defines delineation as the conduct of investigation, field reconnaissance and assessment, and staking of boundaries between forestlands, national parks and agricultural lands, verified and filed in accordance with the criteria set forth under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Administrative Order No. 2008-24.
Meanwhile, the bill refers to forestlands as all lands of the public domain already classified as forestland per existing Land Classification maps issued by the DENR, all permanent forest reserves proclaimed by the President or declared by Congress through law, and such areas within the unclassified lands of the public domain that were assessed and delineated by the DENR in accordance with existing laws, rules and regulations on the matter.