DAVAO CITY—The city government is planning to ask President Rodrigo Duterte to issue an executive order directing the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority to ban aerial spraying in Davao City.
The city has filed a motion for reconsideration of the Supreme Court’s en banc decision on the anti-aerial spraying ordinance of city on October 18, 15 days after the legal office received the en banc decision.
Attorney IV Enrique Bonocan said that since the SC held that the Sangguniang Panlungsod had no authority to ban aerial spraying as that power solely belongs to the FPA, which is under the Department of Agriculture, the President can issue an executive order banning it.
The anti-aerial spraying ordinance was created under the term of Duterte when he was still the mayor of Davao City.
Duterte was the leading oppositor to aerial spraying in the city.
The Supreme Court ruled the ordinance as ultra vires, which is defined as “beyond one’s legal power or authority.”
On August 16, the SC en banc struck down the city’s anti-aerial spraying ordinance as invalid and unconstitutional.
When asked by the media here to give comment on the SC’s decision, Duterte said he does not suggest the filing of a motion for recommendation.
A report of the city legal office through Bonocan said that Article 9 of the Watershed Code of Davao City prohibits aerial spraying only “in those identified by the ordinance as environmentally critical areas.”
The identified critical areas were agro-forestry or agricultural non-tillage areas.
The ordinance also states that buffer zones must be set within 30 or 40 meters away from the critical areas.
“Buffer zones of 30 meters or 40 meters, as the case may be, are still required under the Watershed Code pursuant to Article 10 thereof. Violation of any of the acts prohibited therein is penalized with, inter alia, imprisonment, under Article 19 of the same,” the report reads.