SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) said on Thursday that it has set a new policy to strictly review all projects to be located in this free port in order to safeguard the natural environment here and ensure that new developments are acceptable to stakeholders in the area.
SBMA chairman Roberto Garcia said in a statement that the Subic agency would particularly enforce strict measures and standards on environmentally-sensitive projects (ESPs), which are determined to emit pollutants, or may have a potential impact on the natural resources and the health of the people living or working in the area.
The pollutants, according to the SBMA definition, may include “emissions, effluents, sound or visual that may deteriorate the health of the people, the forests and the animals living there, the bay waters, creeks, groundwater and air, among others.”
The SBMA issued this policy amid calls by stakeholders in the Subic Bay area to reject a proposal by a consortium to build a 600-megawatt coal-fired thermal power plant at the Redondo Peninsula, which lies at the western boundary of this free port.
The SBMA board of directors had previously approved the coal plant project, but Garcia, who recently took over as chairman and head of the agency, said the enforcement of strict environmental standards through a policy on ESPs “will help the SBMA in realizing its mandates of protecting and preserving the environment.”
Garcia said that the SBMA recognizes that the free port’s natural state far exceeds the quality of the national average. Because of this, “the agency may issue stricter environmental standards to satisfy the interests of the stakeholders,” he added.
He added that the law creating Subic Bay Freeport and the SBMA “mandates the latter to protect, maintain, and develop the virgin forests into a national park by implementing the rules and regulations of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.”
Under the ESPs policy, the SBMA directors will review all project proposals and through a board resolution, will declare whether or not the project is environmentally sensitive, or is in compliance with the parameters as to be within the acceptable levels of emissions.
If a project is considered an ESP, the SBMA Ecology Center will independently verify all of the project pollutants, the natural resource impacts, and extent of the proponent’s mitigating measures, and then present all data gathered to the SBMA board.
Meanwhile, stakeholder groups ranging from officers of housing areas in the free port, representatives of workers’ associations and the indigenous people’s tribal council, will be invited to public consultations that will tackle inputs on the verification process.
“This way, the stakeholders are given a sense of participation in truly preserving the unique environmental features of the free port, which are some of the major attractions of Subic’s tourism industry,” Garcia said.
From the consultations, the SBMA board will then evaluate the project based on the “totality of acceptability ratings from the various stakeholders of the free port” and would later declare whether the project is socially acceptable.
Garcia said that in case any project is declared not socially acceptable, the proponent will be advised to redesign the project or its mitigating measures to meet a level acceptable to stakeholders.
The permit to operate will be withheld as the project undergoes further evaluation.
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By: Henry Empeno
Source: Business Mirror, Sept. 22, 2011
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