Expanded NIPAS Act

Also known as: Republic Act No. 11038 · RA 11038 · ENIPAS · The E-NIPAS Law · Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 2018

Society

Definition

The Expanded NIPAS Act is the short title of Republic Act No. 11038, officially “An Act Declaring Protected Areas and Providing for Their Management, Amending for This Purpose Republic Act No. 7586,” approved on June 22, 2018 by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. (LawPhil — RA 11038) The statute it expands is the National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS) Act of 1992, Republic Act No. 7586, approved June 1, 1992 under President Corazon C. Aquino and previously amended in part by Republic Act No. 10629 — the framework law under which all areas previously set aside by “law, presidential decree, presidential proclamation or executive order” became the System’s initial components. (LawPhil — RA 7586, LawPhil — RA 11038)

The Act’s central act is legislative declaration: 94 protected areas are enumerated in Section 5(a.1) as legislatively established “within the classification of national park,” from Ilocos to Caraga plus the National Capital Region — the largest listed being the Tañon Strait Protected Seascape at about 534,589 hectares — converting protection that rested on proclamations into protection resting on statute. (LawPhil — RA 11038) Management is vested in a Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) for each area — chaired by the DENR regional director with LGU, legislative, agency, NGO, indigenous-peoples, academic, and private-sector members, at least forty percent of them women — supported by a Protected Area Management Office headed by a Protected Area Superintendent (PASU) and financed in part by a Protected Area Retained Income Account retaining 75 percent of revenues. (LawPhil — RA 11038) Penalties rise far above the 1992 scale: ₱200,000 to ₱1,000,000 and/or one to six years’ imprisonment for the basic prohibited acts, ₱1,000,000 to ₱5,000,000 and/or six to twelve years for the graver classes, a daily ₱50,000 fine on existing detrimental facilities, and DENR administrative fines of up to ₱5,000,000. (LawPhil — RA 11038, LawPhil — RA 7586)

Identities

Authority	Value
Wikipedia	N/A
Wikidata	N/A
DBpedia	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings	National parks and reserves (sh85090045)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	protected areas (http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_37952)
Google Scholar	https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22Expanded+NIPAS+Act%22
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Republic Act No. 11038
RA 11038
ENIPAS
The E-NIPAS Law
Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 2018

Examples and Analogies

From lease to deed: under the 1992 framework, most protected areas rested on presidential proclamations — instruments a later proclamation could revisit; the ENIPAS Act converts a class of them into statutory declarations, the way possession becomes titled property — which is why this wiki’s entries treat June 22, 2018 as a “final statutory layer.” (LawPhil — RA 11038, LawPhil — RA 7586)
A graduating class of ninety-four: the Act works like a commencement for protected areas — ninety-four sites, from the Tañon Strait Protected Seascape’s half-million hectares down to small island landscapes, receiving the same legislative diploma at once, with Apo Reef Natural Park listed at 15,799.23 hectares as this wiki’s entry on the reef documents. (LawPhil — RA 11038)
The board as the park’s parliament: the PAMB gathers the DENR chair, local chief executives, barangay chairs, legislators, agencies, NGOs, indigenous peoples, academe, and the private sector at one table — with a forty-percent floor for women — so the park’s conflicts are argued inside its own management structure. (LawPhil — RA 11038)
Verified statutory data:
Short title: “Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 2018” (Section 1)
Approval: June 22, 2018, by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte; the amended NIPAS Act was approved June 1, 1992
Legislatively declared areas: 94 protected areas in Section 5(a.1), classified as national parks, across the regions plus NCR; largest listed: Tañon Strait Protected Seascape, about 534,589 hectares
Management: PAMB chaired by the DENR regional director with LGU, legislative, agency, NGO/PO, indigenous-peoples, academic, and private-sector membership, at least 40 percent women; PAMO headed by a PASU
Financing: Protected Area Retained Income Account retaining 75 percent of protected-area revenues
Penalties: ₱200,000–₱1,000,000 and/or 1–6 years for prohibited acts; ₱1,000,000–₱5,000,000 and/or 6–12 years for graver acts; ₱50,000 daily fine on existing detrimental facilities; DENR administrative fines up to ₱5,000,000
Transparency: protected-area legal documents publicly available at DENR regional offices, PENROs, CENROs, and PAMOs
System context: the wider NIPAS estate stood at 244 protected areas covering about 7.76 million hectares — 15.4 percent of the national territory — as of 2020
(LawPhil — RA 11038, LawPhil — RA 7586, Wikipedia — List of protected areas of the Philippines)

Usage Scenarios

1. Administering a Protected Area Under the Act

A park’s managers — the PASU and the PAMB — operate under the Act’s structures: the board approves management plans and allocations, the retained-income account keeps 75 percent of park revenues at the park, and the enabling documents sit on file at the DENR regional office, the PENRO and CENRO, and the PAMO. (LawPhil — RA 11038)

2. Prosecuting Protected-Area Violations

Enforcers charge prohibited acts — poaching, illegal hunting, and the rest — under the Act’s penalty tiers, from ₱200,000 and a year’s imprisonment up to ₱5,000,000 and twelve years, with the daily ₱50,000 accrual against detrimental facilities and DENR administrative fines as parallel tracks. (LawPhil — RA 11038)

3. Establishing New Protected Areas by Law

Legislators drafting protected-area bills use the Act’s 94 declarations as the template — the batch method Congress has continued in subsequent individual acts — and this wiki’s entries on Mount Kanlaon Natural Park (chartered by its own RA 9154 in 2001) and Apo Reef (listed by RA 11038 at 15,799.23 hectares) show the two statutory routes in operation. (LawPhil — RA 11038, Wikipedia — List of protected areas of the Philippines)

4. Comparing NIPAS and ENIPAS

Comparative-law work sets the two statutes side by side: 1992’s proclamation-sweeping initial components and ₱5,000–₱500,000 penalties, against 2018’s legislative declarations, the expanded board with its forty-percent women’s floor, retained income, and the ₱200,000-to-₱5,000,000 penalty ladder. (LawPhil — RA 7586, LawPhil — RA 11038)

Strategies

Legislate the park rather than proclaim it: the Act’s core strategy is tenure-hardening — statutory protection outlasts proclamations, the route Mount Kanlaon’s RA 9154 took in 2001 and which 94 more areas received in 2018. (LawPhil — RA 11038, LawPhil — RA 7586)
Let the park keep its earnings: retaining 75 percent of revenues ties enforcement income to the park that generates it — fees funding rangers rather than the general fund. (LawPhil — RA 11038)
Compose the board to include the ground: barangay chairs, indigenous peoples, NGOs, and local officials sit inside the decision, with the forty-percent women’s floor as a representation rule — co-management as design rather than concession. (LawPhil — RA 11038)
Escalate the price of violation: the penalty jump from the 1992 ceiling of ₱500,000 to the 2018 ceiling of ₱5,000,000, with imprisonment up to twelve years, prices protected-area crime as serious crime. (LawPhil — RA 7586, LawPhil — RA 11038)
For researchers: cite each park’s area at its statutory source — as this wiki’s Apo Reef entry does with the 15,799.23-hectare listing — and keep the counting bases distinct: 94 areas declared by this Act against 244 protected areas in the wider system as of 2020. (LawPhil — RA 11038, Wikipedia — List of protected areas of the Philippines)

Security and Safety Measures

Prohibited acts as the perimeter: the Act’s schedules of prohibited acts — poaching, illegal hunting, and the graver classes carrying ₱1,000,000 to ₱5,000,000 — define the criminal perimeter of each national park. (LawPhil — RA 11038)
Daily accrual against entrenched harm: facilities existing within a protected area and determined detrimental to it face a ₱50,000 daily fine, with closure and forfeiture available — the mechanism against grandfathered damage. (LawPhil — RA 11038)
Resident management as presence: the PAMO and PASU put a resident superintendent and staff in each area — the on-site administration without which paper protection cannot respond to incursions, as this wiki’s Apo Reef entry records from the ranger station. (LawPhil — RA 11038)
Documentary transparency: protected-area legal documents must be publicly available at DENR regional offices, PENROs, CENROs, and PAMOs — the transparency safeguard against boundary manipulation. (LawPhil — RA 11038)
Administrative track: DENR administrative fines of ₱50,000 to ₱5,000,000 give the Secretary an enforcement instrument shorter than prosecution. (LawPhil — RA 11038)

Historical Context

Philippine protected-area law descends from the reservation statutes of the American era: Act No. 648 of 1903 authorized forest reserves, and the National Parks Act of 1932 produced the first national park at Mount Arayat on June 27, 1933. The modern system arrived with Republic Act No. 7586, approved June 1, 1992: it established the National Integrated Protected Areas System, swept every previously proclaimed park, reserve, and sanctuary into it as initial components, ordered maps to Congress within a year and suitability studies within three, created the PAMB, and set penalties at ₱5,000 to ₱500,000 and one to six years. (LawPhil — RA 7586, Wikipedia — List of protected areas of the Philippines)

The 1990s and 2000s tested the framework’s pace: RA 10629 amended sections of the original act, while Congress also chartered individual parks by statute — Mount Kanlaon’s RA 9154 of 2001 among them, with its geothermal buffer and congressional lock. On June 22, 2018, RA 11038 generalized the route: 94 protected areas legislatively declared at once, an expanded PAMB and PAMO structure, retained income, and penalties an order of magnitude higher. The wider system stood at 244 protected areas covering about 7.76 million hectares — 15.4 percent of the country — as of 2020, administered by the DENR through the Biodiversity Management Bureau. (LawPhil — RA 11038, Wikipedia — List of protected areas of the Philippines)

Challenges and Controversies

Legislative Pace and the Counting Problem

The Act’s 94-in-one-law method answered a quarter-century in which few protected areas had achieved statutory status — but the numbers must be kept distinct: 94 areas declared by this Act against 244 protected areas in the system as of 2020, two different bases that popular tallies conflate; even the standard reference list carries an open notice that it lacks E-NIPAS coverage. (LawPhil — RA 11038, Wikipedia — List of protected areas of the Philippines)

Harsher Penalties, Real Enforcement

The penalty ladder — up to ₱5,000,000 and twelve years — answers weak deterrence under the 1992 scale, but fine schedules do not patrol: enforcement remains a matter of PASU staffing and ranger presence, the gap this wiki’s Apo Reef entry records from the marine side. (LawPhil — RA 11038, LawPhil — RA 7586)

The Politics of the Board

The PAMB seats everyone with a claim — DENR, governors, mayors, barangay chairs, legislators, agencies, NGOs, indigenous peoples, academe, the private sector, and the forty-percent women’s floor — which is both its democratic virtue and its known friction: conservation decisions emerge from a table at which extraction interests also sit. (LawPhil — RA 11038)

Old Statutes in the New System

Parks chartered by their own acts — Mount Kanlaon’s RA 9154 with its geothermal buffer and Act-of-Congress bar — continue inside the ENIPAS framework, so the system runs on two generations of statutes at once; reconciling their provisions is the standing administrative task this wiki’s Kanlaon entry examines. (LawPhil — RA 11038)