Norma Javellana’s Speech to the Sangguniang Panglungsod of Davao
Barangay Ma-a Federation of Home Owners Associations, Inc.
S.E.C. Registration No. CN200429-121
c/o 3rd St. cor Trinidad Ave., Trinidad Greenhills Subdivision
Bugac, Ma-a, Davao City
Telefax (082) 244-0090
Address to the SP session February 9, 2010
Dear Vice Mayor and Council members,
I am Norma Javellana, President of the BMFHAI. I am not alone here and with me in the gallery are representatives from member homeowner associations and other residents of Ma-a. As you can see, they are wearing T-shirts with the slogan “save davao shrine hills.com” …. It is also the name of the website we have developed, which you can consult for regular updates and information we post there.
The people here present are only a tiny fraction of the now 2,979 residents of Ma-a who have signed our open letter/petition to declare the Shrine Hills a PROTECTED AREA. The petition signing is a work in progress, also involving schools, and churches and puroks. Daily, more people support the petition.
While the BMFHA is an non-government community association, we are also happy that our initiative is being endorsed by our Punong Barangay, Loreto LAUD, Jr. Therefore this initiative is being supported by private groups, the subdivisions, as well as the local government of Ma-a. In other words this is a very broad community effort. All these groups and entities are united in this common concern which is basically the livability of Ma-a and being involved in projects and plans on how to develop Ma-a now and in the near and far away future.
We are also very grateful to the Vice Mayor and the whole SP, for giving us the chance to say a few words, which shows that we all share this common concern of the livability of the our City, Davao City.
Therefore let me state or restate in a compact way what our concern is all about:
1. What triggered the petition we are presenting to you goes back to 2006 and 2007 when several subdivisions experienced flashfloods, erosion problems and destruction of housing units, roads, and water ways. Investigations by the residents that followed clearly showed that what substantially contributed to the problem was the alteration and subdivision development that was happening higher on the slopes. Construction works of developers were causing erosion and this was even happening illegally, before they had received the necessary PALC, the Preliminary Approval and Locational Clearance.
2. We, the Federation, looked also deeper into the conditions of the Shrine hills and found that there were several springs, and also small and bigger cavities and sinkholes. After all, Shrine Hills is not made up of massive rock but of sediments that have accumulated over the ages. MGB characterizes the soil of Ma-a Hills even as “highly porous and poorly compacted limestone, and with unconsolidated and friable sediments.” We also discovered that in the housing development of some of the established subdivisions that had been going on for some years, some homeowners experienced unexpected alterations in their foundations and incurred substantial remedial costs, among them even the ABS-CBN station. Some landowners even backed out from building a house when they realized the precarious situation of their property.
3. In other words, whatever happens on Shrine Hills raises issues and concerns for both the residents in the lower slopes who have been there for the past 10, 20, 30, 50 years, and also for residents on the top end, and for prospective buyers of properties in new subdivisions.
4. Given these realities, for us in the Federation and for many other residents of Ma-a, it is quite obvious that the best thing that can be done for both present and future residents, is that Ma-a Shrine Hills will be declared a protected area, that further piecemeal development will be stopped and that Ma-a Shrine Hills will be recognized for the important environmental role it plays, as an ecological asset, the green lungs, in the middle of the city.
Different geologist and urban planners have already commented that rapidly urbanizing cities all over the world now, in the age of global warming, must make big efforts to preserve and enhance their ecological assets such as hills and ridges, tree slopes, springs, for the protection of their citizens now and in the future. Can Davao City, with its claim of being a highly livable city, do anything less?
5. We, the federation, came to the conclusion that much of what has been happening in Ma-a Shrine hills is, among others, the result of a zoning process that lacked long-term and strategic thinking, that lacked good independent scientific and geological and environmental studies and that lacked broad based consultations. Developers of course come up with studies but these are in function of pursuing their pre-set interests: making big profits from valuable real estate. Moreover studies by the subdivision developers are piecemeal, site specific and self-serving. They are not holistic, not considering the whole of Shrine Hills and not at the service of the total existing community. Rezoning the hill based on solid information and participation is therefore indeed a laudable decision.
6. In that regard we are grateful that our proposition to have an independent study conducted has been approved, that the City has allocated a budget for it and that it will be conducted in the near future by the team of independent geologist Sandra Catane from the National Institute of Geological Sciences (NIGPS) of UP, also involving our own MGB and CENRO of Davao. It is true that a terrain analysis has already been made by the MGB of the Davao City watersheds, but this didn’t specify the terrain of Ma-a Hills. The independent study will fill this important gap.
7. Based on these developments we strongly assert that the council needs to consider the findings of the independent study before deciding the development permit of Palm Grove West Phase I and Positano. Even more: we strongly assert that the council first comes up with the comprehensive re-zoning before considering any DP or PALC for that matter. They have to be hold in abeyance until a comprehensive re-zoning of Ma-a Shrine Hills has been formalized. We would strongly assert that the council considers the study in order to make, this time, strategic, long-term decisions regarding the development of Ma-a Shrine Hills, through this re-zoning.
We want to thank you again for giving us the chance to air our point of view here and we look forward to the completion of the independent study and to a participatory process of re-zoning that will be for the benefit of the majority of the citizens of Davao.
Norma T. Javellana
President
