EDITORIAL – Environment user’s fee

ONE significant event to occur this year is the start of collection by the Davao City government of an environment user’s fee.
This will be the first time the city government will impose such a fee. The EUF is provided for in the Watershed Management and Protection Ordinance, otherwise known as Watershed Code. The code was approved by the Davao City Council in 2007 yet, but full implementation has become possible after the Mayor Sara D. Carpio administration had pressed for the completion of the code’s implementing rules and regulations (IRR) this year. It was also this year that Mayor Inday organized the multi-agency and multi-sectoral Watershed Management Council, aside from embarking on a delineation survey of the city’s watersheds.
The EUF will be collected by the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) based on the data to be established by the City Business Bureau. The EUF will be imposed every year on the owner or management of agricultural plantation whose size is 50 hectares or more at the rate of 25 centavos per square meter.
There’s a similar imposition stipulated in the Water Code, another ordinance. It’s called extraction fee. Unfortunately or fortunately, this fee cannot be enforced until the Water Code itself can hurdle the opposition to the ordinance posed by the National Water Resource Council.
The EUF is a step in the government’s effort to protect the environment, in this case the watersheds, which are the sources of potable water of the city’s more than a million residents, not to include their visitors.
Hopefully, the fee will have an impact on the overall conservation effort of both government and private sector. Otherwise, it is just like any other faddish money measure.