95 towns, cities within Manila Bay watershed do not follow environmental laws: DILG

February 14, 2019

A total of 95 towns and cities within the Manila Bay watershed area do not follow environmental laws, the Department  of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Thursday.

DILG Secretary Eduardo Ano said this is 53 percent of the 178 local government units (LGUs) from Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), according to assessments and on-site inspections by their regional-interagency committee in 2018.

Of the 95 LGUs, 56 are from Central Luzon followed by  37 from Calabarzon and two in the National Capital Region. Ano did not say which two LGUs in Metro Manila are non-compliant.

The LGUs, Ano said, failed to achieve the indicators gauging their compliance to existing environmental laws, with six 16 having the worst problems.

"Based on our assessment, we still have a lot of work to do, and we intend to start with these 16 LGUs as we go along assisting all of 178. We will help them,” he said in a statement.

Ano warned  local chief executives to shape up or they will file administrative complaints against them before the Office of the Ombudsman or even to President Rodrigo Duterte.

"We can also file cases against them with the Ombudsman or recommend disciplinary action to the President, if warranted,” he said. DMS