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BY JUN AGUIRRE
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KALIBO, Aklan – Former congressman Allen Quimpo complained about the presence of illegal structures in the coastal village of Pook.
One of such structures was a two-storey house at the “natural reclamation” at a mangrove area, said Quimpo.
He claimed these illegal structures put the capital town at risk of flooding.
“Some elected provincial and municipal officials were behind” the illegal structures, the former Kalibo mayor claimed. He did not name names.
“They don’t have pertinent papers to [prove] they owned the lot” that was “part of the natural reclamation of the mangrove plantation,” he stressed.
After super typhoon “Yolanda” struck in November 2013, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) ordered local government units to declare areas near coastlines “no-build zones.”
mangrove plantations helped protect some areas from “Yolanda’s” strong winds and prevent flooding in localities next to rivers, Environment officials said.
Quimpo is now president of the Kalibo Save the Mangrove Association.
When he was still congressman in the ’90s, he forged an agreement with the DENR for a massive mangrove planting at the wetlands of Barangay New Buswang.
Since then, mangrove plantations here widened. Planted areas became tourist destinations.
The DENR already ordered the owners of the illegal structures to vacate and demolish them, it was learned./PN
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