The Department of Environment & Natural Resources here has stood pat on the fees collected from visitors to the Balinsasayao Twin Lakes amid a complaint from a foreign tourist over the disparity between rates for locals and foreigners.
Viernov Grefalde, park superintendent of the Lake Balinsasayao Park, said the P100 fee is a general admission fee, and is imposed not only on foreigners but on all non-Negrense residents who wish to get in the preserved eco-tourism park.
An Australian tourist who signed his name as Allen White, had complained of “racism” in the collection of fees, after a visit to the Twin Lakes with his Filipina wife during Christmas last year. “My issue is with the principle of a policy that sets a precedent for charging foreigners more based upon the fact that they appear foreign,” White wrote in his letter.
Grefalde said that White may have been “misinformed” about the fees as there are no special fees for foreigners.
Residents of Negros Oriental, he said, are given a discounted fee of P10 called the “local privilege fee”, of which they can only avail if they show an ID, he said.
Grefalde explained that the fees were formulated by the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) and are being collected since year 2000 to cover the expenses needed to run the 8,000-hectare stretch of natural park, which is thrice the size of Dumaguete City.
PAMB only recommended such fees to DENR. PAMB is a 23-member board chaired by DENR which oversees the operations of the Twin Lakes. Among its members include the Provincial Planning & Development Office, the Sibulan Mayor, barangay captains, representatives from NGOs, the academe, the SU Center for Tropical Studies (Centrop), and former Environment Secretary Dr. Angel C. Alcala.
The creation of PAMBs is provided for under Republic Act 7586 or the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS). PAMB is tasked to manage and supervise the protected areas in the country.
Grefalde explained that the fees collected by PAMB go to the lake’s operational and upkeep expenses such as salaries for its 11 personnel, and efforts to control or minimize kaingin or slash-and-burn farming around the lake and its environment.
He said that although the fees collected from visitors are augmented by DENR’s monthly budget of P60,000, these still are not enough to cover the costs needed to oversee the vast park.
“For salaries alone, we spend P50 thousand a month. Our budget is not enough to pay for the operations of the lake. The actual yearly expenses totals P900 thousand,” said Grefalde.
Lake Balinsasayao is one of two deep-crater freshwater lakes rising 300 meters above sea level, located 12 kms west of Sibulan, a town six kilometers away from Negros Oriental’s capital Dumaguete City. (Rachelle Nessia/PIA Negros Oriental)