August 22, 2006 – (Manila) – If there is anything that remains close to my heart and a personal advocacy I pursue every time a chance comes along is the promotion of the protection of the environment.
There were several pro-environment projects that the government initiated in the recent past, projects that are worth the effort and the funds but as usual the political landscape changed and so did the priorities.
Notable among the many projects that died alongside the changing of the guards at Malacañang was the “Clean and Green” Project and the “Save the Pasig River,” under the Pasig River Rehabilitation Programme (PRRP).
The two projects, initiated under the Ramos administration brought about a degree of attention or interest from the public, it stood a chance to fulfill its given objectives.
The Pasig River rehabilitation project was one of the more hyped-up projects in the Ramos period and in the mid-nineties, its price tag was merely PhP15 billion for a 15 year period of cleaning and bringing back fish life in the main waterway of the nation’s capital. In 15 years, around 2010, the Pasig would be blue again and with fishes.
Funding for it was to be financed by the national government, plus the usual foreign aid coming from Japan and Europe and a fund-raising project called, “Piso Para sa Pasig,” (A Peso for the Pasig River) that comes from individual contributions of every Juan de la Cruz. (Juan de la Cruz is the generic name for every Filipino, as Uncle Sam infers an American national). Response to the project was positive and it became a personal crusade of then First Lady Amelita Ramos.
By 1998, a new administration steps in and though pronouncements that it was an administration that would pursue notable projects of its predecessor, the scenario turned in reverse resulting in setting aside programs or initiatives that would prolong and promote the achievements of the Ramos government.
Politics and vendetta? That is all together a different issue that plagues the Philippine politics, reason as to why this country seems to be doing one step forward and three stops backward when reaching its set goals.
The environment of this country is in immense pressure as the population continues to grow.
Its quite elementary economics to say as to why a runaway population would result in pressure to the environment --- more people means a higher demand for more resources --- resources that are not finite and too slow to replace or even replenish.
The government on its part seeks and implements remedies to manage the country’s resources, and on certain levels, introduces programs and policies to sustain the diminishing resource of this country.
Given the limited resources, the government does have its failures and misgivings.
For a period of time, I’ve dealt with officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources or DENR on issues concerning legislation and the usual concerns as to why they can only do as much is the lack in funding, sufficient to implement guidelines and put people in areas where they can monitor how our resources are being utilized or abused by some.
Due to the limitations the department faces, it has introduced programs, remedies that will temporarily address the problems but we have to admit, the problems and pressures the environment faces is long-term, taking at least generation to fix and often the damage or destruction is irreversible.
Among the remedies that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has initiated is a project called, “Green Philippine Highway,” a brain child of Secretary Angelo Reyes.
This concept is not new all together but is worth the effort and should be endorsed.
During the time of Marcos, it was policy of the state that every one should at least plant a tree.
Back then there were still open spaces to do that tree planting effort but nowadays, the explosion in population and uncontrolled development in Metropolitan Manila has made tree-planting absurd.
In the rural areas, where there are more trees, what else is there to do? There are trees and an abundance of plants there already, often the property is already fenced and owned by someone else.
What could be more distressing is that areas reserved for flora and fauna are slowly being wiped out by irresponsible trashing and burning by people who want the land to till and converted into agricultural land.
In the twenty years since Marcos was ousted, efforts to conduct reforestation has been pushed to the sidelights and pace of deforestation has increased despite repeated assurances that the government is on top and ensuring the country’s forest cover is still in top form.
In just almost 100 years, from the 1900s to the 1990s, the country’s forest cover was close 21 million hectares, reduced to 6 million hectares and by the turn of this new millennium, in less than a decade the country’s forest cover is less than a million hectares or approximately 800,000 hectares.
Now, if we hear of stories of landslides all over the country, this is something we should not be surprised about anymore. The only surprising things we should expect are the extent of the damage and the number of people who perished.
Not to sound lacking in sympathy but these are the hard realities that this country faces as a result of possibly of our own ignorance and being irresponsible, and for the government, having myopia in seeing the future and greed by officials who works for government to get rich.
Secretary Reyes aims to plant trees along the three national highways stretching from Luzon to Mindanao, specifically the 823.9-kilometer West Nautical Highway stretching from Batangas City through Mindoro, Aklan, and Negros Oriental to Zamboanga-Sibugay.
There are more than five million registered vehicles in the country and these vehicles contribute close to 70 percent of the air pollution of this country.
The aim of the tree planting project along the highways is to reduce air pollution from gas emissions and allow the countryside to breathe non-toxic air.
The task is enormous and it needs all the support it can get but there are certain concerns that need to be addressed here.
Planting a tree is easy but keeping it alive is not.
The most dangerous of all predators on earth are humans who despite intelligence way above other species of the animal kingdom, humans are the ones who poses as the greatest danger to destroying this planet.
We can plant all the trees along the highways that we want but what are the assurances that they will still be there say ten years from now?
People plant trees and we don’t help them grow, development overtakes the trees usage & purpose and when one government bureaucrat operating on a whim wants to expand the road, the trees are cut despite laws saying we can’t just cut down trees.
Like here in Metro Manila, former First Lady Imelda Marcos wanted to line up the major roads and arteries with trees, to beautify the capital and fulfill her vision of Metro Manila as the “City of Man.”
Plant boxes were built in the center of roads and highways and fast growing trees such as the endangered “Ipil-Ipil” (Scientific Name: Leucaena diversifolia) became the center ornament in the capital’s road arteries.
Twenty years have passed and the Ipil-Ipil trees are gone. Some say it was hazardous to road traffic and serves as obstacles to those ugly looking wires, cables and power lines that weaves through the metropolis while most of the trees were cut due to progress. In some instances, some bird brain bureaucrat just wanted to take away the plant boxes and just install metal barriers, which are now disappearing because some people saw off pieces of the iron rods to be sold for scrap metal.
In Quezon City, Katipunan Road which is now part of the C-5 arterial highway was once a site to see with large Acacia trees (Scientific Name: Acacia confusa) lined up along the road but because they needed to expand it. The trees which were older than the oldest living Filipino today are now long gone and replaced with shrubs.
A tree stands in front of my small apartment and everyday, my family looks after it and waters it.
I’ve seen the tree get bumped by trucks, pushed & shaken by people with nothing to do, trimmed by our village clean-up brigade and bent because of the number of typhoons that brought strong winds to the city.
The tree’s foliage usually obstructs our view of the street but it surely makes our summer a little cooler with its cover.
A tree along the highways is not a bad idea but are we sincere about it, have we educated the people who lives along these highways that, “these are your trees!”
Projects are good, it costs us a lot of money and in the end we just take it for granted.
It would be nice to drive through the countryside with trees lined up providing cover during hot summer days and from large rain droplets (save for downed trees blocking the road) during the monsoon but can we actually sustain and keep them there? And for how long?
Don't we get all tired when we plant, they destroy?
There were several pro-environment projects that the government initiated in the recent past, projects that are worth the effort and the funds but as usual the political landscape changed and so did the priorities.
Notable among the many projects that died alongside the changing of the guards at Malacañang was the “Clean and Green” Project and the “Save the Pasig River,” under the Pasig River Rehabilitation Programme (PRRP).
The two projects, initiated under the Ramos administration brought about a degree of attention or interest from the public, it stood a chance to fulfill its given objectives.
The Pasig River rehabilitation project was one of the more hyped-up projects in the Ramos period and in the mid-nineties, its price tag was merely PhP15 billion for a 15 year period of cleaning and bringing back fish life in the main waterway of the nation’s capital. In 15 years, around 2010, the Pasig would be blue again and with fishes.
Funding for it was to be financed by the national government, plus the usual foreign aid coming from Japan and Europe and a fund-raising project called, “Piso Para sa Pasig,” (A Peso for the Pasig River) that comes from individual contributions of every Juan de la Cruz. (Juan de la Cruz is the generic name for every Filipino, as Uncle Sam infers an American national). Response to the project was positive and it became a personal crusade of then First Lady Amelita Ramos.
By 1998, a new administration steps in and though pronouncements that it was an administration that would pursue notable projects of its predecessor, the scenario turned in reverse resulting in setting aside programs or initiatives that would prolong and promote the achievements of the Ramos government.
Politics and vendetta? That is all together a different issue that plagues the Philippine politics, reason as to why this country seems to be doing one step forward and three stops backward when reaching its set goals.
The environment of this country is in immense pressure as the population continues to grow.
Its quite elementary economics to say as to why a runaway population would result in pressure to the environment --- more people means a higher demand for more resources --- resources that are not finite and too slow to replace or even replenish.
The government on its part seeks and implements remedies to manage the country’s resources, and on certain levels, introduces programs and policies to sustain the diminishing resource of this country.
Given the limited resources, the government does have its failures and misgivings.
For a period of time, I’ve dealt with officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources or DENR on issues concerning legislation and the usual concerns as to why they can only do as much is the lack in funding, sufficient to implement guidelines and put people in areas where they can monitor how our resources are being utilized or abused by some.
Due to the limitations the department faces, it has introduced programs, remedies that will temporarily address the problems but we have to admit, the problems and pressures the environment faces is long-term, taking at least generation to fix and often the damage or destruction is irreversible.
Among the remedies that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has initiated is a project called, “Green Philippine Highway,” a brain child of Secretary Angelo Reyes.
This concept is not new all together but is worth the effort and should be endorsed.
During the time of Marcos, it was policy of the state that every one should at least plant a tree.
Back then there were still open spaces to do that tree planting effort but nowadays, the explosion in population and uncontrolled development in Metropolitan Manila has made tree-planting absurd.
In the rural areas, where there are more trees, what else is there to do? There are trees and an abundance of plants there already, often the property is already fenced and owned by someone else.
What could be more distressing is that areas reserved for flora and fauna are slowly being wiped out by irresponsible trashing and burning by people who want the land to till and converted into agricultural land.
In the twenty years since Marcos was ousted, efforts to conduct reforestation has been pushed to the sidelights and pace of deforestation has increased despite repeated assurances that the government is on top and ensuring the country’s forest cover is still in top form.
In just almost 100 years, from the 1900s to the 1990s, the country’s forest cover was close 21 million hectares, reduced to 6 million hectares and by the turn of this new millennium, in less than a decade the country’s forest cover is less than a million hectares or approximately 800,000 hectares.
Now, if we hear of stories of landslides all over the country, this is something we should not be surprised about anymore. The only surprising things we should expect are the extent of the damage and the number of people who perished.
Not to sound lacking in sympathy but these are the hard realities that this country faces as a result of possibly of our own ignorance and being irresponsible, and for the government, having myopia in seeing the future and greed by officials who works for government to get rich.
Secretary Reyes aims to plant trees along the three national highways stretching from Luzon to Mindanao, specifically the 823.9-kilometer West Nautical Highway stretching from Batangas City through Mindoro, Aklan, and Negros Oriental to Zamboanga-Sibugay.
There are more than five million registered vehicles in the country and these vehicles contribute close to 70 percent of the air pollution of this country.
The aim of the tree planting project along the highways is to reduce air pollution from gas emissions and allow the countryside to breathe non-toxic air.
The task is enormous and it needs all the support it can get but there are certain concerns that need to be addressed here.
Planting a tree is easy but keeping it alive is not.
The most dangerous of all predators on earth are humans who despite intelligence way above other species of the animal kingdom, humans are the ones who poses as the greatest danger to destroying this planet.
We can plant all the trees along the highways that we want but what are the assurances that they will still be there say ten years from now?
People plant trees and we don’t help them grow, development overtakes the trees usage & purpose and when one government bureaucrat operating on a whim wants to expand the road, the trees are cut despite laws saying we can’t just cut down trees.
Like here in Metro Manila, former First Lady Imelda Marcos wanted to line up the major roads and arteries with trees, to beautify the capital and fulfill her vision of Metro Manila as the “City of Man.”
Plant boxes were built in the center of roads and highways and fast growing trees such as the endangered “Ipil-Ipil” (Scientific Name: Leucaena diversifolia) became the center ornament in the capital’s road arteries.
Twenty years have passed and the Ipil-Ipil trees are gone. Some say it was hazardous to road traffic and serves as obstacles to those ugly looking wires, cables and power lines that weaves through the metropolis while most of the trees were cut due to progress. In some instances, some bird brain bureaucrat just wanted to take away the plant boxes and just install metal barriers, which are now disappearing because some people saw off pieces of the iron rods to be sold for scrap metal.
In Quezon City, Katipunan Road which is now part of the C-5 arterial highway was once a site to see with large Acacia trees (Scientific Name: Acacia confusa) lined up along the road but because they needed to expand it. The trees which were older than the oldest living Filipino today are now long gone and replaced with shrubs.
A tree stands in front of my small apartment and everyday, my family looks after it and waters it.
I’ve seen the tree get bumped by trucks, pushed & shaken by people with nothing to do, trimmed by our village clean-up brigade and bent because of the number of typhoons that brought strong winds to the city.
The tree’s foliage usually obstructs our view of the street but it surely makes our summer a little cooler with its cover.
A tree along the highways is not a bad idea but are we sincere about it, have we educated the people who lives along these highways that, “these are your trees!”
Projects are good, it costs us a lot of money and in the end we just take it for granted.
It would be nice to drive through the countryside with trees lined up providing cover during hot summer days and from large rain droplets (save for downed trees blocking the road) during the monsoon but can we actually sustain and keep them there? And for how long?
Don't we get all tired when we plant, they destroy?
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