Talk of Pangasinan tourism and the Hundred Islands National Park (HINP) in Alaminos City instantly comes to mind.

After all, the Hundred Islands is this province’s premier tourist attraction - a diverse ecosystem of overgrown corals that compose the 123 islands and islets and where the sand, sea and sun work together to bring about a variety of beautiful flora and fauna and a relaxing ambience.

Every year, the 1,844-hectare HINP attracts thousands of visitors and picnickers who want to enjoy this wonderful gift of nature. But each year, too, the threats to its ecological beauty become real that, unless the authorities strengthen their resolve to protect and conserve it, this country’s first national park may just go to seed.

The HINP was declared as national park by President Manuel Quezon in 1940s and was managed first by the Bureau of Forestry then Hundred Islands Conservation and Development Authority. It later leased it to the provincial government of Pangasinan which turned over its management to the Philippine Tourism Authority in 1980.

Fast forward to 2006. When Hernani Braganza took over the helm of the two-year old city in 2004, he decided that the local government unit (LGU) must co-manage the HINP, citing the city charter which identified the islands as part of the fledgling city’s territory.

A memorandum of agreement was signed by the LGU with the PTA and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for the co-management of the islands. The city has created an “environmentally-sustainable” development plan aimed at attracting more tourists to the islands while protecting and sustaining the islands as a marine reserve and establishing a zoning plan, including a marine sanctuary.

But as the LGU dreams big of developing the HINP and making Alaminos the “center of tourism and hub of tourist destination in northern Luzon,” it also has to address the ecological problems that threatens the very existence of the islands.

The Hundred Islands is really beset with a lot of problems, Braganza said. The briefing paper on the HINP mentioned problems like insufficient resources for tourism development and environment protection, lack of tourism services and facilities, lack of marketing, poor visitor safety/security system, lack of enforcement of marine reserve guidelines such as on illegal fishing (use of improvised dynamites) and poaching of corals, shells, bonsai and lumber, and lack of waste management system.

The paper did not mention the proliferation of commercial and residential establishments within the foreshore area of Lucap, proliferation of fishpens and the conversion of a 46-hectare area into fishponds.

These problems have long been acknowledged by the agencies which admitted that the HINP needs conservation and protection from environmental degradation.

When the HINP was declared “Geological Monument” on October 26, 2001 by the PTA, DENR and the National Committee of Geological Sciences, a ray of hope shone that the problems will be addressed. Half-hearted efforts however, came to naught.
Blight

Right smack in the HINP is a 45-hectare area leased to a group of coastal fishermen from Alaminos by the PTA in 1980. The fishermen organized themselves into a cooperative named Bolo Development Cooperative (Bolodeco with 221 members) for the purpose of developing a swampy mangrove area within the Park into fishpond.

In 1993, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) granted the application of Bolodeco for a certificate of land ownership agreement for the area under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Carp). This, despite Executive Order 506 issued in 1992 by then President Corazon Aquino excluding national parks and other protected areas from segregation, acquisition and distribution by the DAR.

An environmental group, which requested not to be named, said it has a copy of the DENR’s Initial Protected Area Plan for the reclassification of the HINP from a national park to a Protected Landscape/Seascape. “In this plan, Bolodeco was shown to be a threat,” the group said.

”The presence of the Bolodeco still serves as the major threat to the marine ecosystem of the national park (as it) will eventually result (in) the abundance of organic wastes coming from fish meals. These wastes then upset the marine area?s ecological balance, thereby threatening the survival of other marine species and organisms endemic in the area,” the group quoted the DENR’s assessment of the HINP.
 
The DENR has also acknowledged that the fishponds and cages developed by the Bolodeco have affected the water quality at the southeastern portion of park. “Marine life within the park is threatened by the siltation, increase of carbon dioxide and pollution. Water quality at the recreational islands like Quezon’s, Governor’s and Children’s, are being monitored by the DENR and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources,” the agency said in its website.

It was also found out by the abolished Lingayen Gulf Coastal Area Management Commission that the fishermen used corals taken from the ocean’s floor, to construct the ponds.

Aside from environmental issues, legal issues also hound the CLOA. “Can a private cooperative acquire ownership of land within the national park? Is the HINP considered agricultural land that it could be covered by a CLOA? Can a private cooperative be considered a farmer beneficiary for the issuance of CLOA? Did the DAR have an authority to issue that CLOA? the environmental group asked.

The group likewise wondered why the DENR did not question the CLOA.
In August 1999, trying to right a wrong, the PTA asked the DAR’s adjudication board (Darab) to declare the CLOA null and void ab initio (from the start). The PTA likewise asked the Bolodeco to surrender the CLOA to the DAR and for the agency to cancel it, to revert the area to public domain and to issue a permanent injunction against Bolodeco in exercising rights of ownership.

The “Darab’s police power necessitates the protection of our endangered environment and the maintenance of the country’s tourist attraction,” the PTA said, adding “the state has the right to make the HINP a sanctuary for marine life and to prevent the destruction of its coral reefs and to preserve its pristine waters from pollution and degradation.”

In an answer to the PTA’s petition. the Bolodeco insisted that the acquisition of the fishponds inside the HINP was above board because two presidents authorized the award of the area.

The fishermen claimed that President Aquino issued Executive Order 407 in 1990 authorizing the issuance of the CLOA by the DAR. Former President Ramos later authorized the issuance of the original certificate of transfer 2077 to Bolodeco which was registered with the Registry of Deeds of Pangasinan.

The fishermen wondered why other fishpond owners inside the park who are rich people were not included in the case.
”We, small farmers and fishermen need the fishpond badly to solve a big part of or problem of food security of our families,” they said.

But they admitted that it was no longer them who manage the fishpond as the cooperative has leased the area to a couple from Bulacan.

The environmentalists said the reclassification of the HINP into a protected landscape/seascape would also open it to “economic activities” that could quicken its environmental degradation, thus is opposed by lovers of the Hundred Islands.

Lovers of the Hundred Islands could only hope that the authorities concerned will gather their acts together and quicken their action to solve the problems threatening the ecosystem and beauty of this God-given paradise.