THE reported Lapu-lapu City’s strong opposition to the proposed bill in the House of Representatives initiated by Rep. Erico B. Aumentado has already been settled, Antonietto “Boy” Pernia, the congressman’s trusted aide, said in a phone interview. Lapu-lapu City recently passed a resolution expressing “vehement opposition” to House Bill No. 5145, “An Act Declaring the Danajon Double Barrier Reef,” also to be known as the “Danajon Double Barrier Reef Natural Park” in an apparent bid to protect and conserve of what is left in the reef. The Lapu-lapu City resolution, approved unanimously by city council, cited the 1987 Constitution and Local Government Code that provided for a sharing of the national government the “responsibility to manage and maintain ecological balance within their territorial jurisdiction consistent with the autonomy.”

The proposed bill, if approved by Congress, would ease out Lapu-lapu’s jurisdiction over its territorial domain, the Lapu-lapu city council argued. Pernia said that the objection of Lapu-lapu City has been ironed out following the recent meeting with the city officials in a dialogue initiated by Aumentado. Pernia said the fears of the Lapu-lapu City of losing jurisdiction and fishing were not kinks anymore because Lapu-lapu city and neighboring town of Cordova’s fishermen are not barred from fishing on Danajon Reefs. He explained that what Aumentado tries to advance is to protect and conserve the only double barrier reef in this part of the globe. Gov. Edgar Chatto’s administration, meanwhile, is contemplating to pursue what has been started in Danajon’s proposed shared conservation efforts by reactivation of the CeLeBoSole or the Cebu-Leyte-Bohol-Southern-Leyte management council contained in provincial Resolution No. 2008-155.

The said Resolution expressed Bohol willingness with other concerned provinces to a common goal to develop the reef through the proposed Memorandum of Agreement under the CeleBoSole Growth Quadrangle Convention on poverty, population, health and environment. Bohol provincial government has already declared the Reefs as “Heritage Site and Protected Seascape, Citing the Uniqueness of its Geological Structure and High marine Biodiversity as contained in Provincial Resolution No. 2006-103. (RVO)