{"id":151482,"date":"2018-02-06T22:06:11","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T03:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=151482"},"modified":"2018-02-06T22:06:11","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T03:06:11","slug":"multi-agency-task-force-eyed-to-tackle-boracay-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/02\/06\/multi-agency-task-force-eyed-to-tackle-boracay-woes\/","title":{"rendered":"Multi-agency task force eyed to tackle Boracay woes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Leones<\/a>
Leones said the tourism, health, local government, and justice departments were likely members of the planned task force. (PNA PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2014<\/strong>\u00a0The government is planning to create a task force that would address the environmental problems and other concerns in Boracay Island, one of the country’s top tourist destinations.<\/p>\n

“Various agencies, including the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), will compose the task force,” Environment Undersecretary Jonas Leones said in a media briefing in Metro Manila on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Leones said the tourism, health, local government, and justice departments were likely members of the planned task force.<\/p>\n

A planned executive order would spell out each agency’s role in the task force, Leones said.<\/p>\n

DENR would be concerned with Boracay’s environmental problems, he said.<\/p>\n

The DENR official raised the urgency for action, noting studies showing continuing violation of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act or Republic Act 9003 in Boracay.<\/p>\n

“There are reports that some establishments are already located in forestland there,” he said.<\/p>\n

Earlier, DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu warned establishments about releasing untreated wastewater and sewage into Boracay’s waters.<\/p>\n

He said the DENR would close down and file cases against establishments that continue releasing such discharges.<\/p>\n

“We need a serious and honest-to-goodness crackdown on these erring establishments that are contributing to water pollution in Boracay,” Cimatu said in a statement Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The DENR and the Department of Tourism had started coordinating on the matter, he said.<\/p>\n

Among Cimatu’s priorities as DENR chief was promoting solid waste management (SWM) nationwide to help address pollution and other problems, Leones reiterated.<\/p>\n

“He wants compliance with RA 9003,” said Leones.<\/p>\n

RA 9003 refers to SWM as “the discipline associated with the control of generation, storage, collection, transfer and transport, processing, and disposal of solid wastes in a manner that is in accord with the best principles of public health, economics, engineering, conservation, aesthetics, and other environmental considerations, and that is also responsive to public attitudes.”<\/p>\n

“Solid waste shall refer to all discarded household, commercial waste, non-hazardous institutional and industrial waste, street sweepings, construction debris, agricultural waste, and other non-hazardous\/non-toxic solid waste,” the law reads further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2014\u00a0The government is planning to create a task force that would address the environmental problems and other concerns in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":151483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[14175,28567,46016],"class_list":["post-151482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","tag-boracay-island","tag-department-of-environment-and-natural-resources-denr","tag-multi-agency-task-force-eyed-to-tackle-boracay-woes","mauthors-catherine-teves","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}