Leyte Rep. Richard Gomez
LEYTE Rep. Richard I. Gomez wants the House Committee on Natural Resources to recommend the filing of criminal and administrative charges before the Office of the Ombudsman against Palompon Mayor Ramon Oñate and his wife Lourdes for gross violation of the country’s land and environmental laws.
Gomez urged the House committee leadership to “come up with a report and a conclusion” that the Oñate couple, along with complicit employees of the regional office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) “be charged” for violating the Forestry Act and environmental management laws for massive pollution of water, soil and air resources.
“I recommend that with these offenses, the Committee would come up with a report and a conclusion that we will file this to the Ombudsman,” said Gomez, who is the author of House Resolution No. 778 which prompted the House inquiry into the blatant violations of land use and environmental management laws in the municipalities of Palompon and Albuera in the fourth district of Leyte.
The lawmaker in particular had asked the House panel to look into how the DBSN Farms Agriventures Corporation has been polluting the water, soil and air resources in the municipalities of Palompon and Albuera where the firm is operating.
Mayor Oñate is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of DBSN, which has a 55,000-capacity chicken dressing plant in Albuera and a breeder farm in Palompon with a capacity of 88,000 chicken heads.
A recent assessment study conducted by the Department of Biological Sciences of the University of Santo Tomas’ College of Science on the water quality, stream ecology, microbial analysis of the Albuera-Tinag-an stream system showed that solid wastes from the DBSN dressing plant polluted the waters of Ormoc Bay. The plant’s solid wastes include dead chickens, chicken intestines, and other parts and materials.
On the other hand, collected solid wastes from the Albuera plant were transported to Palompon and dumped on Lot 5150 in Barangay San Joaquin, which is located inside the perimeter of the Palompon Watershed and Forest Reserve that was established under Proclamation 212 issued by the late president Corazon Aquino in 1988.
Aside from the filing of charges, Gomez also recommended that the DENR cancel the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) issued to DBSN “right away because of the pollution happening as revealed in the test.”
“That is my recommendation… for the secretary of DENR to study this further and make sure that all penalties would be paid by DBSN Farm and to cancel its ECC right away because of the pollution happening as revealed in the test. Cancellation of the ECCs of DBSN Farm in San Joaquin, the dressing plant in Albuera in Barangay Tinag-an, Antipolo,” he said.
He likewise suggested that the DENR “excavate the dumpsite” where the solid wastes have been dumped. “This is totally unacceptable that this is happening. We cannot and should not tolerate the destruction of our environmental resources,” he stressed.
The former mayor of Ormoc City also urged DENR Secretary Toni Yulo-Loyzaga to “transfer all the heads of the different offices of the DENR Region 8 to other regions.”
“They are so familiar with the people in the area, they are also familiar with all the illegalities of inside offices. So, I suggest that we recommend and ask the secretary to move them out, to transfer them,” Gomez said.
Lastly, Gomez called on the management of the Landbank of the Philippines to “cancel loans in the name of Ramon and Lourdes Oñate” and to file an estafa case against them and the DBSN Farm “for deceit.”
The Oñates have a 50m loan to the Landbank, which they obtained in 2020 for purposes of funding the operations of the DBSN farms and plants.
