Collection of fees from divers in Panglao resumes

TAGBILARAN CITY, Philippines — The Panglao municipal government has resumed this week the collection of environmental user’s fee (EUF) from tourists who go diving or skin diving, and snorkeling in marine protected areas (MPA) and dive sites.

The Office of the Municipal Treasurer had formally informed the managers and proprietors of resorts that the LGU will already implement Regional Trial Court-Branch 48’s decision, dated June 25, 2012, lifting the injunction on the EUF.

The EUF, pegged at P100 per person per day (for diving) and P50 per person per day (for snorkeling), has been based on the Ordinance No. 3, series of 2008, or the Environmental Users Activity Fee System Ordinance of Panglao, authored by then Councilor Mercia Denoso and approved on February 13, 2008.

In March 2011, however, the Panglao Dive Operators Association (PANDOA) filed a 21-page petition questioning the ordinance for being vague, short of legal basis, contrary to law and without clear and categorical definitions.

The PANDOA petition, filed against Panglao Mayor Benedicto Alcala and the Municipal Council through Vice Mayor Evangeline Lazaro, succeeded in stopping the collection of EUF since. Regional Trial Court-branch 48 Judge Pablo Magdoza granted the group a temporary restraining order on April 26, 2011 and 20 days after he issued a writ of preliminary injunction.

Magdoza ordered Alcala, his agents, representatives or persons acting on his behalf to “refrain from collecting entrance fees until the pertinent provisions of (the ordinance) are amended and harmonized and no longer unfair and discriminatory to billeted non-tourists or to anybody.”

The court however found three of five questioned provisions of the ordinance were valid under the Local Government Code, but deemed two other sections invalid: 1) dealing with the registration of tourists and payment of entrance fee; and 2) on penalties being unfair, discriminatory and violative of due process.

The petitioners, represented by lawyer Florendo Columnas, said their legal action was never intended to avoid or evade paying the EUF and other fees but to “seek judicial intervention to legally correct, modify, declare ineffective and amend some provisions of the ordinance.

The LGU had since then made some corrections or amendments to the ordinance in compliance with the court order, prompting the court to issue last June a decision lifting the writ of preliminary injunction against the EUF collection effective September 10, this year.

Mayor Alcala estimated the town’s loss at almost a million a month throughout the 17-month period that the LGU had been prevented from collecting the EUF. 

Municipal Treasurer Rena Guivencan then advised the resort managers and proprietors and diving operators to inform their clients on the resumption of the EUF collection “to avoid any inconvenience.” The personnel of the Municipal Treasurer’s Office visited the affected resorts last week to make an inventory of the unused EUF tickets.