DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/July 13) –  A marine biologist’s “conservative estimate” of the extent of damage brought about by the ongoing construction of the Samal-Davao bridge is that at least a fifth of the 7,500 square meter Paradise Reef in Samal “is now dead” and environmentalists expect more damages after the Court of Appeals (CA) in Cagayan de Oro denied on July 10 the issuance of a Temporary Environmental Protection Order (TEPO) to stop the construction.

“Had we been given a chance to testify in Cagayan de Oro, all of this would have been presented to show that there is indeed an imminent danger that an entire coral reef will perish,” marine biologist John Michael Lacson told MindaNews on Sunday. 

Lacson said the CA denied the petitioners’ prayer for a TEPO without giving them a day in court. The petitioners had explained in their 222-page petition for a Writ of Kalikasan that the construction of the Samal Island-Davao City Connector (SIDC) project has resulted in “actual, serious, and irreversible damage to coral reefs in Paradise Reef and in Hizon Marine Protected Area.” 

The 3.98 kilometer bridge that would connect Davao City and Samal Island is expected to be finished in 2028. The ₱23-billion project funded through a loan from China, is expected to reduce travel time between Davao City and Samal Island from 20 minutes by ferry to five minutes by car.

The Supreme Court on July 1 issued a Writ of Kalikasan against the Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Environment and Natural Resources,  the Samal Island Protected Landscape and Seascape Protected Area Management Board, and the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), gave them 10 days to file a verified return on the petition and referred the payer for a TEPO to the Court of Appeals (CA) in Cagayan de Oro for action. 

The CA’s Special Twenty-First Division ruled on July 10 that it would not issue a TEPO as doing so at this stage “would cause undue disruption to a government infrastructure project already in progress and may potentially harm the greater public interest.”

The Court said the petitioners “failed to demonstrate that the case pertains to matters of extreme urgency and that grave injustice and/or irreparable injury will arise if no TEPO is issued at his stage of the proceedings.”

Lacson said the swift denial of a TEPO by the CA without giving the petitioners a chance to be heard, “sets a precedent that government agencies can collude to take shortcuts that flagrantly destroy national natural resources, then proceed with impunity.”

“How is it possible that the Supreme Court votes en banc to issue the Writ after two months, and an Appellate Court denies the TEPO, without a hearing, in a matter of days?” he asked. 

Extreme urgency, grave injustice, irreparable injury 

Lacson and petitioners for a Writ of Kalikasan had pointed to the  “extreme urgency” and “grave injustice and / or irreparable injury” that made them ask the Supreme Court to issue the TEPO and extend it “until the termination of the case, after the conduct of a summary hearing.”

The high court referred the issuance of a TEPO to the CA. 

According to Lacson, Paradise Reef on the Samal side of the bridge had an estimated area coverage of 7,500 square meters, from Jetty #1 of Paradise Reef to Jetty #1 of Costa Marina Resort. “At present, given the area underneath the craneway, a one meter margin on all sides of the craneway, and the dead corals scattered between Jetty#1 of Costa Marina and Jetty #3 of Paradise Resort, it is a conservative estimate that one fifth (1,500 meters squared)  to one fourth (1,900 meters squared) of Paradise Reef is now dead,” he told MindaNews on Sunday. 

Lacson said the security staff of CRBC prohibits swimming in the vicinity of the craneway, and they have “tightened security even more since the filing of the Writ,” so the estimates are based on videos taken underneath and beside the craneway until and including November 12, 2004 which were included as evidence in the petition, and surface swims “that reach only the jet ski parking slightly South of Paradise Jetty #3, which is the limit of the Security perimeter imposed by CRBC.” 

^{Video taken on Earth Day, April 22, 2025, a day after the petition for a Writ of Kalikasan was filed. Video shows the result of application of cement by CRBC was an overflow that covered stag horn corals. Video courtesy of John Michael Lacson}

On June 4 last year, barely a month since construction of the SIDC went full swing, environmentalists reported the destruction of at least 63 square meters of hard corals. 

The destroyed area, the size of a public school classroom (63 square meters), hosted “centennial” table corals, Carmela Marie Santos of the Ecoteneo and  an the Sustainable Davao Movement (SDM) said after a group dive to monitor the impact on the reef. Santos and the SDM were among the petitioners for a Writ of Kalikasan. 

But Lacson noted in a November 2024 MindaNews report that what is more alarming is that from 63 square meters as of June 4, the extent of damage had multiplied ten times as of November 7 or only five months later. 

Lacson went underwater on November 7 to check on the impact of the construction on the corals and estimated that 600 square meters of corals in Paradise Reef – the size of about 10 classrooms or a junior Olympics swimming pool – were dead and reduced to rubble.

Lacson said the Paradise Reef ecosystem is “vital to the survival of coral reef communities fringing Samal Island.”

“Final nail in the coffin”

Lacson reiterated his earlier statements that an Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) for the present alignment of the bridge project “should not have been issued” as it is directly impacting Hizon Marine Protected Area in Davao City and Paradise Reef in Samal. 

“The true environmental impact of the bridge at its current alignment was not realistically reported by the designers to the respective government agencies during the process of securing the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC),’’ he said. 

He noted that while everyone agrees that a bridge is necessary, in the SIDC project, “the cost of the natural resource was not estimated with due diligence. There were alternatives that were bypassed.”

Petitioners told the Supreme Court they were not against the construction of a bridge but not its present alignment. They also cited four other alternative alignments that would not have impacted on the Hizon and Paradise Reef marine protected areas. 

Lacson, who has been documenting the reef conditions in the bridge project, sent a video clip taken on Earth Day, April 22, a day after the petition for a Writ of Kalikasan was filed in the Supreme Court, showing cement being poured on the reef area below and near the bridge in Samal. 

“The video I am sending you shows what happened the day after the petition was filed on April 21.  The pouring of the cement was the second to the last nail in the coffin of Paradise Reef.  The final nail in its coffin is when they pour cement again,” he said, adding “this is how our government ignores the Environment as it proceeds with its infrastructure projects,” Lacson said. 

The video, he added,  shows that the result of the application of cement by CRBC at that location “was an overflow that covered staghorn corals (Acropora muricata, and A. robusta) …  visible at every lowest of low tides.”

A chance to be heard

Law professor Romeo Cabarde believes the CA erred in denying the TEPO despite unrefuted evidence of actual and imminent environmental destruction affecting legally protected marine ecosystems.

“ The precautionary principle mandates judicial intervention even in the face of scientific uncertainty when irreparable harm is probable. The denial constitutes a failure to uphold the constitutional mandate to protect the people’s right to a balanced and healthful ecology,” he told MindaNews on Saturday,  adding there was no discussion on the merits as the petitioners were not given a chance to be heard. 

In a statement released Friday night, the Writ of Kalikasan petitioners said the TEPO “would have immediately halted construction activities that, according to marine scientists and field documentation, have already caused irreversible damage to coral reef ecosystems” in Paradise Reef and Hizon Marine Protected Area.

Despite the CA’s denial of a TEPO, Santos and the other petitioners stressed they did not petition the Supreme Court to obstruct development. “We came to defend the law, protect biodiversity, speak up with our fisherfolks, and hold public institutions accountable for failing to consider less harmful alternatives,” she said. 

The petitioners emphasized that scientific findings submitted in the case clearly documented the destruction of live coral colonies, sedimentation impacts, and declining fish catch “yet these were not deemed urgent enough for interim protection.”  (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews with a report from Ian Carl Espinosa)