CLARK FREEPORT – “It’s both arbitrary and unnecessary.”
This was how the Clark Investors and Locators Association (CILA) described the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Administrative Order No. 2016-08 on Water Quality Guidelines and General Effluent Standards (GES) as it expressed its objection and apprehensions against it.
Dr. Frankie Villanueva, former president of CILA and now chair of its foreign investment advocacy, safe and technology, said it appears that DAO No. 2016-08 was a “midnight” directive by then outgoing DENR secretary Ramon Paje “bereft of any study or technical research.”
Villanueva said the Clark Water Corp. (CWC) is set to implement the order with the establishment of a P1.5–billion waste water treatment facility on Friday, January 15.
Villanueva explained that this will mean a possible rate increase of 100 percent by the CWC which, he said, is unjustifiable at this time of the raging pandemic.
He said the DAO No. 2016-08 appears to be without basis as CILA’s requests for a study were ignored.
In a letter to present DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu last Thursday, CILA called his attention for his “swift and favorable response” on their objection and apprehensions as they called for a “proactive discourse between the government and the private sector in view of corporate environmental sustainability.”
CILA said: “We cannot stress enough the urgency of this request since CWC is compelled to start construction to comply with the DAO which shall commence on January 15, 2021.”
CILA is the organization representing over 90 percent of total investments, employment and exports of this freeport zone.
