‘Rich’ Cordillera has high poverty incidence

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March Fianza

Even for being as an administrative region for 22 years now, or for existing as a “special” region as some would describe the creation of the naturally rich Cordillera out of the provinces that used to be under regions 1 and 2, poverty incidences on the municipal level are still very high.

This was what was consistently revealed in the last press briefings held before the kick-off of a month-long celebration of the 22nd birthday of the Cordillera Administrative Region or CAR.

In the culmination activity of the environment month last June 30, bad news accompanied the good. Good news is that Cordillera still has more than 60 per cent of its 1.8 million hectares of forest to maintain and continue to recover what was stripped.

The bad news – more than 35 per cent representing more or less 950 hectares of forest cover has already been lost to unscrupulous entities as of last year. Privately organized forest protectors side by side the DENR can lose the war in forest protection if they fail to stop the denudation of Cordillera woodlands.

Added to this is the recent opinion by the Office of the Solicitor General that seemed to favor the act of LGUs on the issuance of tax declarations over public lands, including those that were declared in the past as forest reservations.

Understandably, the TD issuances by the LGUs aim to increase local revenues that are shared by the barangays in terms of development – an act that is resorted to especially in a region where reports of poverty incidences are bad.

Even so, RED Primitivo Galinato Jr. of the DENR said that in the meantime while they plan to fight the OSG opinion in other venues which might take a long time, his office will look for other income-generating crops that may be recommended for planting by the TD applicants.

He said people must be made to understand that just because they pay taxes does not mean they can do anything with the land, especially forested areas.

Btw, eco-walk organizer Mon Dacawi put out a suggestion for DENR to give attention to their real partners in the private sector who have always been into reforestation and environmental protection.

These are not the advocate-organizations who only go as far as speaking publicly about the need for forest protection, organize environment seminars, make the corresponding reports, etc… and get millions of financial support from funding agencies for what they do.
The environment organizations who are actual tree propagators who go out of their way to plant the trees as Mondacs suggested are the DENR’s real partners. These are the guys who do the good and dirty job of actually planting the trees that we need but receive nothing – not even a peso.

I look at his suggestion as something to be taken seriously as he stressed the reality that “farmers vote, trees can not.” Aside from illegal loggers, certainly the bigger bulk of tax declaration applicants over forested areas are upland vegetable farmers.

Obviously in this case, the farmer can not be DENR’s partner in its fight against forest denudation as this is the sector that has relentlessly encroached upon the woodlands. Albeit, they can not be blamed for what they do because they live in poverty, as pointed out by government data.
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Their latest move was not intentionally done as an assessment of poverty situations in time for the region’s 22nd anniversary, but the National Statistical Coordination Board of the NEDA released to the press the 20 poorest municipalities in the region. Although, that should have been one of the reasons.

Mayors Robert Canuto, Benito Siadto and Ana Maria Paz Rafael-Banaag, respectively of Kapangan, Kibungan and Natonin, look at this as a necessary tool in making the right decisions in reducing poverty incidence in their towns.

But viewing the socio-economic situations on the ground as pointed by NEDA director John Ngalob, these municipalities may not be “poor” as others imagine them to be because they are “self-reliant.”

The 20 poorest towns in the Cordillera are survivors in their own way, as compared to the other 1,620 towns who get better support from government and private sources.

“It pays to be poor,” said mayor Canuto, adding that due to the poverty mapping activity, “Kapangan now is being noticed.”

Mayor Siadto on the other hand welcomed the reported data as it reflects the situation in his 4th class town. “By looking at it, we will know how to develop Kibungan, know what we can gain by integrating in our development plans the recommendations found in the poverty map.”

In the case of mayor Rafael-Banaag’s 5th class town of Natonin in Mt. Province , it was elevated from being 5th of the poorest 20 towns in the year 2000 to number 11 in the latest mapping conducted for 2003. But in terms of natural resources, Natonin is far richer than the other towns in the region.

Take the case of Tanudan, a 5th class town in Kalinga. In the poverty mapping done in 2000, it was on number 18. It dropped to number 1 or the poorest of the 1,620 towns in the poverty mapping conducted for 2003. Tanudan like Natonin, Kapangan and Kibungan, is blessed with natural wealth. It can not be considered “poor.”

In Benguet, the 5th class town of Tublay nearer to the capital town of La Trinidad and the city of Baguio but it is listed as one of the 20 least poor municipalities in the Cordillera, as compared to the remote 4th class towns of Kibungan and Bakun.

In another case, the gold-rich town of Tuba is 2nd class in the books and lower in rank as compared to Bokod that is listed as a 1st class town. In poverty incidence, data shows that Tuba is poorer than Bokod.

In all these cases, the situations on the ground challenge the government data. The familiar truth is that there is unbalanced distribution of support from the sources.