DENR to hire 315 ex-CPLAs as forest guards in Cordillera

BAGUIO CITY -– The Cordillera office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will be hiring 315 former members of the defunked Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA) to be deployed as forest guards to preserve and protect the region’s deteriorating watersheds from illegal loggers and poachers.

           

Clarence Baguilat, DENR-CAR regional director, said the new forest guards will be hired by the agency this month to ensure that the region’s remaining watersheds and forested areas will be spared from the activities of illegal loggers that would greatly affect the region’s status as the watershed cradle of Northern Luzon in the future if nothing will be done to enhance regreening efforts.

           

 “We want to deploy more forest guards in critical watersheds in the different parts of the region so that we will be able to significantly reduce the number of illegal logging activities and help improve the regreening of the forests for the benefit of the present and future generations of Cordillerans,” Baguilat stressed, citing that all the six provinces in the region will be getting their share from the forest guards to be hired.

            

Mountain Province, Abra, Apayao and Kalinga will be receiving 60 forest guards each province, Benguet will be getting additional 30 forest guards while Ifugao will be receiving 24 forest guards.

            

The DENR- CAR official said the hiring of the former CPLA members as forest guards is pursuant to the commitment of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process to provide gainful employment to them in exchange for the surrender of their firearms and for them to go back to the mainstream society and live a normal life.

           

Baguilat agreed with the earlier contention of Bauko Mayor Abraham Akilit that there is an urgent need to deploy additional forest guards to preserve and protect the undisturbed forest of the Mount Data watershed and to prevent owners of commercial vegetable farms in Benguet from invading the same and ruining the remaining forest cover in the area.

            

Considering that Mount Data is the headwaters of the Chico, Agno, Abra and Magat rivers, Baguilat pointed out the need to maintain the remaining undisturbed forest and expand the reforestation activities in order to significantly increase the forest cover in order to have abundant water supply for the rivers which will be used for domestic, agricultural, industrial and power generation activities, especially for people living along the river systems and even those in the lowlands.

            

He explained the forest guards to be hired will be given specific assignments in strategic watersheds regionwide so that the primary goals and objectives of the National Greening Program (NGP), especially for the region alone will be realized and even exceeded so that people will be able to enjoy and reap the fruits of having a sustainable watershed.

           

Baguilat expressed support to the long standing proposal of Mayor Akilit to fence the metes and bounds of the Mount Data watershed to prevent unscrupulous owners of commercial vegetable farms in the nearby towns of Buguias and Mankayan from invading the undisturbed forest in the town, thus, the need for the vigilance of the people living in the boundary areas to police their own ranks and for them to get their acts together against the encroachers in their places. -- Dexter A. See