In no mood to compromise, Panglao Mayor Benedicto Alcala defied threats of criminal action, sending him in the warpath of Tawala's beach line mid-morning Wednesday to personally carry out a no-nonsense campaign in ridding the beachfront of all sorts of eyesores like tents, tables and chairs. The Wednesday blitzkrieg took place after the Panglao mayor went on air during DYTR's Cuentas Claras warning erring resort owners to pack up the rows of chairs, tables, tents and other makeshift structures along the Tawala beach line with the veiled threat that they would be seized and brought to the municipal hall. He formed a task force in the beach operations with two dump trucks in tow. Apparently testing the limits of the mayor's political will to preserve the beauty of the island's beaches, the resort owners, six of them foreigners, two are Filipinos, defied Alcala's threat prompting him to carry out the campaign without fear or favour.
Slapped already with two permanent injunctions in his bid to preserve the town's environment, Mayor Alcala's lightning raid Wednesday on the beach's illegal structures was made despite another threat of criminal suit by a lawyer of Oopps Bar, one of the seaside resorts whose tents, chairs and tables were hauled off by the mayor's men. The two permanent injunctions all issued by Presiding Judge Pablo Magdoza of the Regional Trial Court Branch 48 was for the implementation of the 20-meter salvage zone and the collection of the so-called environmental user's fee as mandated by a local ordinance and an executive order. Lawyer Alexander Lim, legal counsel of Oopps Bar, pleaded to Mayor Alcala to spare his client only for the Easter shindig but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The resort owner threatened to sue Mayor Alcala for seizing his client's dining and drinking paraphernalia.
According to Mayor Alcala, he was constrained to implement to clear the beachfront of all kinds of eyesores following complaints of tourists that they have been deprived of a place to wander around as the same was already blocked by the structures mounted by resort owners. Trying to rationalize that the beach line is beyond the commerce of man because it is intended for promenaders, Mayor Alcala noted that not a few tourists complained to him that the bravado and defiance to town regulations of some resort owners spoiled the beauty of Panglao's beaches. A Post team sent to verify if the mayor's campaign to clear the area was followed as desired showed that the beachfront was already cleared of all kinds of unwanted structures. Also in the mayor's “line of fire” was the rows of motorized boats berthed along the shoreline during high tide. An existing ordinance prohibits the moorings of pump boats near the beaches in Panglao to prevent accidents from happening while the seacraft were moored near the shoreline. Mayor Alcala also received complaints of swimmers in Panglao swallow waters being knocked off by the bottoms of the boats.
MARINE SANCTUARY
At the same time, Mayor Alcala also trained his sights a day earlier on snorkel and dive guides in Balicasag Island. In a meeting Tuesday to more than 100 guides, the Panglao mayor warned them of dire consequences if they kept on handling snorkel and dive tours right inside the marine sanctuary in Balicasag. The mayor received reports that even a protected area in the island like the marine sanctuary was not spared by the guides by allowing divers and snorkelers to scour the prohibited zone of the island. Mayor Alcala noted that the intrusion of divers in the marine sanctuary destroyed the corrals uglifying what is regarded as one of the best dive sites in the world. Mayor Alcala warned that he will not hesitate to impose the drastic penalty provided for in the ordinance that prohibits the intrusions in protected areas.
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