BENCHWARMER
Ramon
Dacawi
(Almost amused by the media coverage of the
recent fire that gutted portions of Mt. Banahaw, we recycle this piece written
way back in 2008. Even as we do, many parts of the Cordillera pine forest range
are on fire again, an annual series of destruction that never gets national
attention. The fact remains, too, that above and beside these diminishing
pine stands are the equally dwindling mossy forests of the Cordillera
which also hardly inspire national attention even with their crucial role as
the “water tanks” that form the rivers that are the life-blood of the lowland
farms and of the hydroelectric plants that spur national development.)
For quite some time
now, our official, legal and actual view of what makes a disaster is anchored
on its immediate impact on human life, limb and property.
A state of calamity is
determined and declared as such by the number of human lives and human
properties lost or damaged in the wake of a typhoon, fire or earthquake. It is
measured by the number of houses, bancas, fishponds, farmlands and public
infrastructure destroyed, by the number of schools, roads and bridges to be
rebuilt.
Unless human lives and
properties are involved, a forest fire, however extensive the swath of
destruction it leaves on trees, flora and fauna, is hardly viewed as a
disaster. It doesn't merit declaration of a state of calamity that would allow
funding for rehabilitation. Let nature rehabilitate itself.
Between a mature tree
and a house built recently beside it, the former must go. It has to be cut for
it poses danger to life and property. Why the house, in the first place, had to
be built beside the tree is hardly a legitimate question to ask. So when the
tree is cut, the property owner is rewarded for his acquisitive foresight for
material things -- in terms of free lumber to expand his house.
Notwithstanding our
ability to define "sustainable development", tree, forest and
watershed conservation and protection remain beyond our sense of urgency or
mental grasp. Otherwise, we won't be having this protocol that lumps
suppression of any fire under the command of the Bureau of Fire Protection
which, for all intents and purposes, is equipped and trained to combat
infrastructure – not forest - fires.
Otherwise, Congress
would not have sat on the country's forest management plan our foresters
drafted and submitted decades ago. Otherwise, Congress would have gone beyond
taking to task the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for
the denudation of our watersheds and forests.
A DENR official down
there in Metro Manila told me why Congress can't provide as much budgetary
allocation for watershed and forest conservation and protection as it does for
farm production: Trees can't vote but farmers can and do.
And yet, the official
added, "we get the flak whenever rice production dips due to the drying up
of the forest water source".
Up here in the unique
and remaining Cordillera pine stands and mossy forests, a disaster has long
been in the offing. It is triggered by years of neglect of a region whose
mineral, forest and water resources were harnessed in the name of national
development, yet short-changed of benefits accruing from their extraction and
exploitation.
Some giant firms that
mined out the gold now want to still hold on to the land. New, speculative ones
promise "responsible mining", to soften opposition to further
exploration and eventual extraction of what remains of the lode in tribal lands
For some time now, the
lowlands have been blaming us up here whenever they are flooded yet do not
comprehend our sacrifice that allowed the construction and operation of the
dams and mines.
They now complain that
we have not preserved the mossy forests that, for generations, have been the
life-blood of their farms. Yet we up here were and are practically alone in
their upkeep through the “muyong” “lapat” and other indigenous and time-honored
watershed management practices, without substantial support from down
there.
Fact is the lowlands
continue to oppose our share from national wealth taxes and other benefits from
the operation of hydroelectric power dams, funds that would have enabled us to
maintain the integrity of the watersheds for their benefit.
Now they want to talk
to us, hopefully about shared responsibility in conserving these watersheds
that generate electric power for their homes and industries and irrigation for
their farmlands. For quite some time now, we've been trying to tell them so.
Still, we, the watershed
keepers, have been slow in aggressively fighting for what is due us. For one,
it was only recently that we launched a serious push for a redefinition of a
"host community" under the Electric Power Industry Reform Act
(Epira), to entitle us to shares from the one-centavo set aside for every
kilowatt hour the dams produce and sell. Like our concept of fire as a
disaster, the law's definition of a "host community" is
infrastructure-based, limited to where the dam is located.
Almost a decade after
the controversial Epira was passed, the narrow definition remains. This issue
was raised by Forester Manny Pogeyed immediately after the Epira law was
passed.
We raised the issue
before the Cordillera Regional Development Council and to then Energy Secretary
Vincent Perez when he came to Baguio for a public hearing to gather inputs to
the implementing rules and regulations of the law. The same was raised by
regional economic and development director Juan Ngalob during that public
hearing.
Perez described that
input as an “insightful observation” and promised to consider it as part of the
IRR of the law. As it turned out, that provision was never reflected in the IRR
which was a copycat of the IRR of the Energy Crisis Act of 1992.
We raised the issue
before then Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes during a press conference here. We
told the secretary our cousins in Hungduan, Ifugao were keen on diverting
the flow of the Hapao River, a major feeder to the Magat Dam, to dramatize
their protest over the lack of support to them as keepers of the watersheds
that keep the dam’s turbines running. The secretary was startled by the idea.
We clarified it was an Ifugao joke, but meant to draw government attention to
the years of inequity in the distribution benefits from resource exploitation.
On second thought, the
Ifugaos might as well take that plan seriously. After all, they can do it, as
did their ancestors in carving whole mountainsides into rice terraces with the
crudest of tools.
It took then
come-backing Ifugao Gov. Teddy Baguilat to raise the issue again, during
the First Cordillera Regional Watershed Summit in 2008. With or without a
summit, the governor feels this and other resource-based issues should now be
on top of our regional development agenda, an agenda anchored on fighting for
what is due us from the exploitation of what remains of our natural resources
up here.
For so long, the
agenda for national development has been "user-friendly", friendly to
the beneficiaries of development down there but disastrous to us, the resource
base up here. In sum, what happened – and is happening - reflects my
myopic and warped view of what the build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme of
development actually is on the ground, especially in the Cordillera
where, I guess, it was piloted:
They built and
operated (BO) the mines and dams up here but transferred (T) the gold and
electric power, including the taxes, to Metro Manila and other places
down there.
With another
environmental disaster in the offing, we ask the same old question: Will
development and exploitation of our resources up here be forever for those down
there at our expense up here who are blamed for the flooding and drought down
there?
If that question
sounds angry, it’s because it is. Reason enough for us to push autonomy to
allow us to channel Cordillera resources for the region’s own
development. (e-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.)
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