Dagupan City (25 April) — Now we understand why environmental pollution problems cannot be addressed or acted upon expeditiously: Provincial offices of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) cannot act on their own.

As a matter of course, they still have to bring public complaints on pollution problems to the regional office of the Environmental Management Bureau, a line bureau under the DENR, for proper action.

As a government man ourself, we thought all along that all concerns in the provincial level, be they education, health, social welfare, police, etc, would have to be handled, even decided on if necessary, first by the concerned provincial offices. Only when the issue becomes complicated when the provincial office could no longer handle it efficiently or effectively will the matter be brought to the regional office. Hindi pala.

Some cases may reach the national office for final disposition or brought to the courts or other quasi-judicial bodies.

Now we recall the pollution woes of my townmates in San Jacinto because of the operations of a softdrinks plant and a dressing plant in barangay San Vicente which were handled by the EMB regional office. Yes, hearings were done in San Fernando, La Union when former Mayor Romeo de Guzman was at the helm and who seemed not at all pleased by the presence of such industries despite their helping the town financially.

We wondered why actions were done at the regional level since there was the provincial environment and natural resources office that could handle the complaints or even by the community environment office that had jurisdiction over the area.

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PENRO Wendy Co who was our guest last Tuesday at our weekly Pantongtongan Tayo radio program over DZMQ clarified that her office can “only refer” any environmental concern to the EMB being a line bureau for any action. Another line bureau under DENR is the Mines and Geo-Sciences Bureau which handles mining activities.

We can only wonder what’s the use of the Penro or the Cenro when a seemingly autonomous bureau is operating under a department that is DENR.

Well, that is the set-up. Who should be blamed for such seemingly anomalous bureaucratic system, we do not know. DENR itself is already a paradox. Why, it is a department whose functions are quite a contradiction. It is mandated to preserve the environment but at the same time it is tasked to explore (read: exploit) our natural resources.

That is why it is often torn between preserving, conserving and protecting our environment and exploiting our natural resources. And it appears the favor is tilted towards exploitation.

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Public officials who may in one way or the other help facilitate a project in their community are commended. But for an official to take full credit on a project as if it was his own is a different matter.

We noted the bold, presumptuous claim by a board member from the fourth district on a renovated waiting shed beside the police building in our town as his project, written in bold letters and readily noted by passersby. That project is not his — but ours as taxpayers. He could not, in all conscience, claim that as his. How brazen!

Perhaps he was not aware of it but we suggest he had better change the wording of that announcement like ‘This project was facilitated thru the efforts of …’ or ‘This is where your taxes are spent’ with the name of the official appearing for people to know that he worked for it.

It’s high time the provincial ordinance banning such presumptuous billboards is enforced. Former Vice-Gov. Gonz Duque, who authored that measure, we know, raises his eyebrows every time he sees all those names prominently displayed in those billboards, proclaiming a project as their own – when everyone knows the funds came from the public’s pockets, not the officials’. (PIA-Pangasinan)