Lack of IRR stalls Sta. Ana heritage zone ordinance

MANILA, Philippines — A councilor in Manila blamed the apparent lack of implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for the failure to enforce an ordinance declaring Sta. Ana district as a heritage zone.

While City Ordinance 8244 – which declared an area of Sta. Ana bounded by the San Juan River, M. L. Carreon and Tejeron streets, Del Pan street and the Pasig River as a historical and cultural heritage/overlay zone – was passed in 2011, the IRR have not been drafted until now, according to Manila city council minority floor leader and District 6 Councilor Salvador Philip Lacuna.

“It would be better if in the future there would be a resolution prescribing a (deadline) for the drafting of the IRR,  because we create ordinances and then when it passes the third and final reading with the promise of an IRR, we tend to forget to do so,” he proposed.

Lacuna declared this in response to the recommendations of his fellow District 6 Councilor Luciano Veloso, chairman of the city council’s arts and culture committee, one of which was to convene the Sta. Ana Histo-Cultural Planning Committee to draft the IRR for City Ordinance 8244.

Previously, residents of Sta. Ana decried the continued construction activities of a developer, which reportedly plans to build three 36-floor condominium buildings within the so-called heritage buffer zone of Sta. Ana.

The tremors caused by drillings allegedly caused the paintings on the ceiling of the “camarin” or the room that hosts the revered Our Lady of the Abandoned to chip. The said paintings, believed to be as old as the over 300-year-old Sta. Ana Church, has been declared a National Cultural Treasure.