In light of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) Cordillera’s appeal to make some exemptions on the declaration of Baguio City as a “mining-free zone,” City Representative Marquez Go affirmed that there is no legal basis for the exemption.
“I looked at the archives of Congress pertaining to Proclamation 414 which is the basis of MGB and Proclamation 572 which indicates that these two proclamations will only take effect upon approval or concurrence of Congress. Upon looking at the archives of Congress however, there were no laws passed by Congress concurring with the President’s Proclamation 414 and 572, so theoretically, there is no law or proclamation regarding this matter,” Go was quoted as saying in a SunStar Report.
According to the report, it was documented that Baguio City has two mineral reservoirs, excluding them from the Baguio Townsite Reservation — a 380-hectare area in Barangays Loakan, Apugan, Atok Trail, and Kias under Proclamation 414 s. 1957, and a 159-hectare land covering Barangays Mines View and Lucban through Proclamation 572 s. 1959.
“I might have missed but as of today, the two proclamations requiring the concurrence of Congress to take effect is not present in the archives of Congress. What we did is that once out bill is approved, automatically, Proclamations 414 and 572 are appealed. But we will ask Malacanang if there was a confirmation or concurrence of Congress through a resolution or bill approved by both houses which would have returned to the President for signing,” Go stated.
However, Go expressed that he is open to the request of the MGB for the possible exclusion of some areas.
“We will invite Director Faye Apil in our committee on natural resources for her to explain what her office’s requests are and she might probably be reasonable and we may consider this. But for the meantime, this is the bill that we have filed because this is the request of the City. And what is good here is, although I took this as a personal move, the City is also doing a parallel move,” Go said.
