SP body puts quarry probe on hold pending prosecutor’s action
Legislative investigation by the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on a questioned quarry operation will be on hold.
As such, no comment nor action will officially be taken on the complaint filed by one Agustin Sonza Jr.
Contained in Committee Report No. 2009-02, the committee deemed it best to await resolution of the Iloilo Prosecutor’s Office.
Sonza Jr. impleaded in said complaint the Soledad Sucaldito, Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer.
“The Committee on Environment and Natural Resources to which the subject matter was referred which allegedly, resulted to the loss of excise tax on quarry under Section 151 of the National Internal Revenue Code has endorsed the same to the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office for study and recommendation,” excerpts of the committee report went. “In response to the endorsement of this Committee dated April 3, 2009, PENRO Chief Soledad R. Sucaldito replied that Mr. Sonza had filed a complaint against PENRO with the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office and therefore she cannot give comment or information on the matter since it is still under the processes of the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office.
The SP body decided then to have the matter resolved by the Court instead of conducting its own probe in aid of legislation.
To recall, Sonza in a letter to Vice Governor Rolex Suplico was direct and blunt with his charge. The quarry operations, Sonza Jr. said, were “anomalous” particularly in the burrow pit in barangays Camambugan and Cadagmayan Norte of Sta. Barbara, Iloilo.
This resulted, he said, to losses incurred in the revenues due to the town with shares of the local government units (LGUs).
“The shares of the LGUs in said quarry tax were not monitored and collected because the (BMT’s) Barangay Monitoring Team as provided in the Provincial Quarry Ordinance of 2005 passed by this August Body was not formed or implemented by the Municipality of Sta. Barbara for reasons known only to them,” Sonza Jr. then said.
Further still, Sonza Jr. charged that quarry operators allegedly in cahoots with Capitol officials falsified public documents.
These documents purportedly led to the issuance of quarry permits.
“In 2006, I raised this issue before the Office of Governor Niel Tupas through the Provincial Legal Office. Nobody heard it,” Sonza Jr. lamented.
The SP probe as he then sought was aimed at protecting the environment “….because it is only through good local governance that we can fully protect the environment from degradation and secure us from the Inconvenient Truth, which is Global Warming.”
“An old Indian Chieftain once said,” Not until the last tree in the forest is cut; not until the last river is polluted; not until the last fish is caught; only until then will they realized that we cannot eat money,” Sonza Jr. wrote. “With the passing Typhoon Frank, we realized that indeed we cannot eat money. And Evil will triumph when good men do nothing, thus your help is demanded in the name of good governance. This is the DEMAND OF THE TIME, NOW!”