BACLAYON. – Before the full force of the law was applied on an alleged illegal sand extraction involving a Baclayon resort, management has manifested to stop the mining and siphoning of white sand deposits from its seabed nearby to spruce up its thinning shoreline fronting the seafront establishment. Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer (PENRO) Nestor Canda was poised to issue a cease and desist order for Astoria Bohol prompting management to promise stopping the illegal operations.  Canda said that resort manager Joseph Garan personally visited his office last week to convey the resort’s intention to stop its activities that for past few days have angered residents of Barangay Taguihon, this town. Concerned residents here exposed the resort’s sand extraction for fear that their coastal area would be adversely affected.

This came following Canda’s advise for the resort establishment to cease from further extraction of sand deposits from seabed which is not yet owned by the resort. “You are advised to immediately stop the sand and gravel extraction. Any activity conducted in the foreshore area without a foreshore lease is a clear violation of existing Environmental Laws and regulations,” said Canda in his signed letter dated Dec. 26, 2012 addressed to Joseph Garan, manager of Astoria Bohol.  Canda cited an amended Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) issued on Nov. 12, 2012 that some 32,793 square meters of foreshore area applied by the resort management “has no foreshore lease yet issued by DENR,” adding that the “ECC does not entitle you to extract such sand and gravel deposits over this foreshore area.”  Originally, the resort has acquired some titled 25,793 sq. meters of lot near fronting the coastal area based on its ECC No. RO7-1011-0323 issued by DENR Regional Director Fernando P. Quililan. This ECC has been amended per letter of the director to the resort manager dated Nov. 12, 2012.

 This time, the resort area has been expanded with an additional 32,793 square meters of foreshore area but no approval yet of its application for foreshore lease with the DENR. Under this expansion program, a unit of 8-storey building with casino, restaurant, function hall and bedroom suites; one unit reception pavilion; one unit 8-bed villa; one unit breakfast pavilion; 12 units two-storey studio; two six units two-storey studio; one unit seven storey building with reception, function hall and pool; 50-meter walkway, open space, materials recovery facility, parking area and road network.  In a phone interview yesterday, Mayor Alvin Uy bared that the Sangguniang Bayan here has conducted an ocular visit last Friday of the resort apparently to check on the reported activities of sand extraction. But he has yet to know what transpired from the inspection. He admitted that he has not received any letter complaint from the residents concerned on the resort’s inappropriate activities.

 Earlier, the Bohol Environment Management Office (BEMO) received a complaint regarding the resort’s development work that affects the environment. This prompted the BEMO head Leonilo Lafuente to immediately conduct an ocular inspection on the area and saw for himself that sand deposits were being sucked by a mechanized gadget and hauled them nearby, a few meters of the shoreline fronting the resort. Garan told Lafuente, in the presence of some fishermen that the sand suction was intended to spruce up the shoreline as part of the resort development. But he showed no documents to Lafuente of the on-going activity as part of its expansion during the inspection. BEMO also took notice that the concrete structure made of cement, a few meters long of the shoreline fronting the resort, were mounted to what Garan has described as preventing the sand deposits from being washed out. But Lafuente told Garan that mounting such structure is destructive in the long run as what happened in the Panglao Alona beach row where concrete structures were constructed for the same purpose.