A crack team created by Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Angelo Reyes has served notice that there is a new sheriff in town. Headed by Undersecretary Roy Kyamko, a retired general like Reyes, the National Anti-Environmental Crime Task Force (NAECTAF) served notice that it means business by going for no less than the jugular. By jugular, the NAECTAF went straight to the Dumaluan Beach Resort (DBR) which has earned the reputation as a sacred cow of sorts due to its propensity to remain operational despite trampling on existing laws.

Aside from operating without an environmental compliance certificate (ECC), the minimum requirement to ensure environmental protection, the DBR has also been accused of violating height restrictions and constructions within the 20-meter easement zone. Either because he honestly feels that he has been wronged or that he simply is clutching at straws, Dumaluan now claims, among other things, that he is simply a victim of harassment. Indeed, how heartless can the NAECTAF be in righting a wrong that has gone unchecked for years. How insensitive of the NAECTAF to go right for the top banana when there are small fries all around.

When you rise above the rest, you invite attention. DBR has become a poster boy of non-compliance to applicable laws with its unique line of reasoning. By its own reckoning, DBR bucked the non-issuance of an ECC due to deficiencies by proceeding with its operation. Anyway, it can take one of several options: file a motion for reconsideration, secure a temporary restraining order and, when both fail, simply pay the penalty. It won't matter anymore if there are scandalous violations like structures above height restrictions and inside the 20-salvage zone. By its own interpretation of the law, DBR needs only to pay the fine and all its deficiencies are instantly cured.

As to its claims that there are other resorts with their own violations, that may well be true. But the DENR should not be prevented from closing DBR simply on the basis of the violations of the other resorts. As the no. 1 citizen of the town, the mayor should be the model for obedience, not for violations. The objective here is not the DBR's closure. Rather, it is simply for DBR to comply with the rules just like the rest. Regardless of what it intends to do however, it now has to deal with a strike force ready to play its role as a sheriff to the hilt. The NAECTAF looks serious in its task to shatter the myth about sacred cows.