Workers install a craneway on the Davao-side of the Samal Island-Davao City Connector Bridge on Thursday, 09 May 2024. MindaNews photo by MANMAN DEJETO
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 04 June) – Construction works for the controversial Chinese-funded P23-billion Samal Island-Davao City (SIDC) bridge project are destroying hard corals on Paradise Reef, an environmental group said.
Carmela Marie Santos, executive director of the academe-based Ecoteneo, said during the Kapehan sa Dabaw on Monday that some “centennial” table corals were among those destroyed in an area spanning at least 63 square meters.
“What we have feared two years ago has now been happening,” she said.
Santos said the government contractor, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), is building “piers and wharfs on both sides of the gulf,” particularly on top of the corals beside the property of the Lucas-Rodriguez family.
Davao-based environmental groups, including Ecoteneo, and the Lucas-Rodriguez family, who owns the Paradise Island Park & Beach Resort and Costa Marina Beach Resort, have called on the national government to realign the SIDC project because the current design would endanger what is known as the Paradise Reef.
The Paradise Reef is a 7,500-square meter contiguous reef, regarded by marine experts as a “hidden treasure” and an “important gene bank of marine creatures.”
“Let’s revisit the plans, let’s revisit the alignments. And, at this time of global boiling – not anymore global heating or warming – we cannot do business as usual,” she said.
Santos said environmental groups want to hold the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)-Davao liable for the destruction of the coral reef and the City Government of Davao for its apparent inaction over the environmental damage that this project has caused.
As of 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, DPWH-Davao has yet to respond to requests for comment.
Santos also expressed dismay over the recent cutting of at least 200 trees near the West Insular Village in Lanang in preparation for the construction of the bridge, one of the banner projects of former President Rodrigo R. Duterte and of his successor, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
She said some of the trees felled were about 40 to 50 years old.
Santos said that around 190 trees were cut down on the Samal side.
She noted that the Sustainable Davao Movement, an association of various environmental and civic groups, was alarmed by the cutting of heritage trees, which are protected under the Davao City Heritage Trees Ordinance of 2021.
Section 8 states that “in cases of application for cutting permits for the cutting of a heritage tree or a protected non-heritage tree to be issued by the DENR and which requires the prior approval or endorsement of no objection from the city or any of the barangay local government units of Davao City, the said application for approval or endorsement of no objection shall be acted upon through the Office of the City Mayor.”
It added that “applications for endorsements of no objection to the cutting of all other trees not classified as either heritage tree or a protected non-heritage tree may be issued by the barangay and validated by the City Environment and Natural Resources.”
“We need the forests and trees in the city,” she said.
Santos said they hope that people will take part in the efforts to restore the environment.
“We are all enjoined to restore the land and ecological habitats, and as we know, the city is also an urban ecological habitat, yet here we are doing the exact opposite. So, last April, around 200 trees were cut down in the Davao City side in relation to the SIDC project,” she said.
She called on the city governments of Davao and Samal to “represent our rights to the remaining trees in the city, the rainforest of the city – our corals – and recognize the rights of marine life in the Davao Gulf, home to whales, dolphins, and turtles. We ask that the rights of nature be recognized.”
The SIDC costs P23 billion, P19.3 billion of which comes from a loan from the Chinese government.
On October 27, 2022, Marcos led the groundbreaking of the SIDC project, which his administration eyes to finish by 2027.
The construction of the bridge was awarded to CRBC, a subsidiary of state-owned China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC). (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)