As concerns heighten over rapid upland development in Cebu City, an environmental planner has warned that the government’s lone criminal case against the Monterrazas developer is too weak to survive scrutiny in court — potentially leaving affected communities without accountability.
Environmental Planner Gus Agosto on Thursday urged the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to upgrade the criminal complaint it filed against the developer of the Monterrazas project. He warned that the charge — a minor provision under the Revised Forestry Code — is “dangerously mismatched” with the extent of environmental violations found on the site.
“We cannot protect Cebu with symbolic cases. We need cases that actually stand up in court. The DENR’s current filing risks setting a precedent for impunity,” Agosto said.
Agosto, a former consultant for the Asian Development Bank, said the DENR’s reliance on Section 77 of Presidential Decree 705 — a provision originally intended to penalize illegal logging, possession of forestry tools, or tampering with DENR markings — does not address the systemic development failures documented at Monterrazas.
He pointed out that DENR’s own inspection noted 10 violations of the project’s Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC), along with failed drainage systems, missing discharge permits under the Philippine Clean Water Act, and siltation traced to the site.
“DENR’s own findings confirm 10 ECC violations, failed drainage systems, and missing discharge permits under the Clean Water Act. None of these serious offenses are properly punished under the Forestry Code. This is legal negligence that must be corrected,” Agosto said.
He said the “correct, mandatory charges” should be based on the technical findings of DENR and its field offices, beginning with Presidential Decree 1586, the country’s Environmental Impact Statement System law. Each violated ECC condition, he said, constitutes a separate criminal count — meaning the 10 confirmed violations require 10 separate charges.
He added that more cases should be filed, including:
• Republic Act 9275 or the Clean Water Act, for alleged unauthorized discharges, failed detention ponds, and sediment pollution;
• Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code, for reckless imprudence resulting in environmental damage and public disruption, including power outages, water interruptions, and road blockages during Typhoon Tino;
• P.D. 1096 or the National Building Code, for unsafe slope modification.
“When detention ponds fail and slopes are over-cut, the result is flooding, siltation, power outages, water interruption, and blocked roads. Even communities that did not flood still suffered — that is real harm, and it is punishable by law,” he said.
Agosto also pressed the DENR to release its full, unredacted inspection findings, including the details of all 10 ECC violations, slope and drainage evaluations, stormwater system assessments, and the status of permits and monitoring reports.
He said he has already submitted formal requests to the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) and the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) but has yet to receive a positive response — a sign, he warned, of institutional “foot-dragging.”
“Cebuanos deserve to know the truth. The full report should be made public because environmental protection is a non-negotiable matter of public safety and disaster risk reduction,” he said.
Agosto cautioned that pursuing a weak case against a major developer may encourage other risky upland projects, particularly as communities continue to recover from Typhoon Tino.
“If we let one major project get away with weak charges, every risky developer will think they can gamble with our lives. This is not anti-development; this is pro-public safety. Typhoon Tino showed us that upland greed becomes lowland grief. Cebu cannot afford another preventable disaster,” he said.
The DENR earlier confirmed that it filed a single criminal case on December 3, 2025 against the Monterrazas developer, citing Section 77 of P.D. 705, which penalizes the unlawful possession of implements used by forest officers.
The case stemmed from earlier findings that the number of trees in the project area allegedly dropped from more than 700 in 2022 to just 11, despite the presence of a tree-cutting permit — a claim the developer, Mont Property Group, has denied as “grievously false.”
The company said the area was primarily covered with shrubs and secondary undergrowth, consistent with the conditions of its ECC and development permits, and that its Environmental Impact Statement documented limited capacity for tree growth on the site.
The DENR also cited alleged violations of P.D. 1586, the Clean Water Act, and the project’s ECC, noting issues involving drainage infrastructure, stormwater retention systems, and discharge permitting. (LLP)
