The lawyer of the Save Mt. Kanlaon Movement yesterday said that they have no quarrel with local government officials.

Andrea Si said the inclusion of Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, Negros Occidental Gov. Isidro Zayco, Bago Mayor Ramon Torres and Murcia Mayor Esteban Coscolluela as defendants in an amended complaint she filed last week seeking to stop the Energy Development Corp.’s entry into the Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park buffer zone was in response to alternatives set by the court.

The original complaint she filed in behalf of the members of the coalition group pending before Judge Rodney Bolunia of the Bacolod Regional Trial Court Branch 44 had included only Environment Secretary Lito Atienza Jr., EDC and the MKNP Protected Areas management Board.

On July 24, Si said they were unable to proceed with the hearing for a Temporary Restraining Order they are seeking to stop EDC because the Solicitor General argued that the Department of Energy, the governor and the mayors of Bago and Murcia all have an interest in the outcome of the case and therefore are indispensable parties without whom the case cannot proceed, Si said.

The court gave the plaintiffs three alternatives: to implead the indispensable parties, file a position paper arguing that the parties mentioned are not indispensable parties, or suffer the dismissal of the case for failure to implead indispensable parties, she said.

“Filing a position paper would have meant more delay. Amending the complaint to include the defendants that the Solicitor General wanted to include was the shortest route to a TRO hearing to stop the carnage of our trees,” she said.

Former President Ramos was not impleaded because they dropped Presidential Proclamation 1005 as an issue in the class suit they filed, she said.

Senior State Solicitor Thomas Laragan , representing Atieza, at the last hearing of the case, said that Presidential Decree 1005 was issued by Ramos on May 8, 1997 declaring the Mt. Kanlaon area as a protected area.

Unfortunately the authority that issued the proclamation has not been impleaded in the case, Laragan said.

Governor Isidro Zayco Friday welcomed his inclusion in the suit so the provincial government can ventilate it side on the matter.

“Governor, it is not your side against our side. As our elected leader, we call on you and the provincial board to stand with us to make sure that if R.A. 9154 violates our constitutional rights, the offensive provisions of R.A. 9154 are removed,” Si said.

RA 9154 is the law that created the Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park and tagged the buffer zone as a separate area open to geothermal exploration.

Si said her group is asking Zayco and the provincial board members to hold EDC accountable for its lack of an Environmental Compliance Clearance.

They are also asking the provincial government officials to stop EDC from proceeding with its directional drilling to illegally develop, exploit, and utilize the geothermal resource within the Jardin Sang Balo Sector in the MKNP, she added.

She said they need their governor and the provincial board to stand with them, not against them. Although, as governor, Zayco cannot simply order EDC to abandon its geothermal project in Mt. Kanlaon, he and the provincial board can very well withdraw the support that they gave, she said.*CPG

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