ANGELES CITY – Province-based groups have asked the Supreme Court to decide before year end on their petition filed last Oct. 10 questioning the constitutionality of laws that created the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Free Port (Apeco) authority.
“We humbly submit this humble collective appeal to Chief Justice Corona and 14 other associate justices. There is a paramount need to act immediately and this should be in behalf of the people of Aurora,” the joint statement said.
The petitioners asked the Supreme Court to “prioritize” the 110- page petition they filed against Republic Act 9490 or the Aurora Special Economic Zone Authority (AZESA act of 2007) and the amendatory law RA 10083 or the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Free Port Act of 2010 as unconstitutional.
Their petition said these laws “violated constitutional provisions pertaining to agrarian reform and social justice.”
The petitioners included the Anakpawis party list, Panlalawigang Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid ng Aurora (Pamana), Alyansa ng Magbubukid ng Gitnang Luzon (AMGL), Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), and the Resist Apeco, Defend Aurora Movement.
“Agrarian reform and social justice were extremely violated by ASEZA and its amendatory law (Apeco) patently disregarded the agrarian reform beneficiaries of the agricultural lands awarded to them by the national government when Apeco started covering lands already covered and awarded through government land reform programs,” the petition said.
It also said the two laws were “in gross violation of fisherfolk rights as enshrined in the 1987 Constitution and relevant laws”, as it cited Section 7, Article 13 of the 1987 Charter saying that “the state shall protect the rights of subsistence fishermen, especially of local communities, to the preferential use of local marine and fishing resources, both inland and offshore.”
The petitioners noted that the Aurora free zone project areas overlap with fishing grounds and even homes of small fisherfolk.
“These are areas that adjoin the fishing grounds of fisherfolk such as the shorelines, bays and inland rivers within barangays Esteves, San Ildefonso, Cozo and Dibet (in Casiguran town),” said Pamalakaya chairperson Fernando Hicap.
The petitioners also noted that even indigenous folk are also being displaced by the freeport zone. “RA 10083 covers the areas being claimed by the Agtas and Dumagats in barangays San Ildefonso, Culat and Cozo as part of their ancestral domain or a total of 11,900 hectares of the ancestral domain in Casiguran,” Hicap noted.
The petitioners also noted that the people of Casiguran “who are directly and unduly affected by the creation of ASEZA and Apeco were not consulted or heard before these laws were passed by Congress.”
