Fort Magsaysay to shrink further due to ecozone plan?

FORT MAGSAYSAY, Palayan City, Nueva Ecija - A plan to develop the military camp here into a special economic zone as part of a strategy to modernize the Armed Forces has fanned fears that the sprawling reservation named after the late former President Ramon Magsaysay may shrink further.

The plan, if carried out, could further bring down the size of the once vast camp, now only 35,647 hectares. The camp had an area of 73,000 hectares nearly half a century ago.

Residents here fear that the camp might suffer the fate of Fort Bonifacio, home of the Army's general headquarters, whose identity as a military camp diminished due to the development of the area into a "global city."

Fort Magsaysay is home to some 5,000 soldiers of the Army's 7th Infantry Division, also known as the Kaugnay Division. It hosts three infantry brigades, namely the 701st, 702nd and 703rd, and nine infantry battalions, as well as the Special Operations Command (Socom) and the Training and Doctrines Command (Tradoc).

The so-called cantonment area (or divisional headquarters) covers 2,000 hectares dotted with 204 buildings.

Fort Magsaysay was proclaimed a military reservation by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 237 issued on Dec. 19,1955 by then President Magsaysay. Located some 135 kilometers north of Manila, the camp then covered 73,000 hectares in the municipalities of Gen. Tinio, Sta. Rosa, Peñaranda, Laur and Gabaldon and Palayan City, all in Nueva Ecija, and Dingalan, Aurora.

But the camp's land size shrunk due to the issuance of various presidential proclamations. Magsaysay himself started the proclamation binge by issuing Presidential Proclamation 605 on July 27,1959 segregating 2,018 hectares and 13,482 hectares for the Minalungao National Park and Minalungao Forest Reserve, respectively.

On June 26,1969, then President Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Proclamation 573 allocating 14,887.71 hectares for the Peñaranda Forest Reserve.

During the term of his successor, former President Corazon Aquino, a 5,200-hectare area was converted into the Doña Remedios Trinidad-Gen. Tinio watershed, by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 230 on March 23,1988.

Mrs. Aquino also came out with Presidential Proclamation 709 on March 26,1991, turning 197 hectares into Barangay Militar.

An executive order from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), numbered 448, also excluded 3,100 hectares in the Laur portion of the reservation for Pinatubo families.

Brig. Gen. Ernesto Carolina, commanding general of the 7th ID, told reporters during a media briefing last week, that the reservation is being groomed to become a model military base in line with the bases development component of the Armed Forces' modernization program.

The plan is to be implemented within the next five years at a cost of P696,657,437, involving P194 million for Phase 1, P205.7 million for Phase 2 and P210.97 million for Phase 3.