Pine-scented oil from Sabangan

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

MARCH FIANZA

Telesforo Gut-omen or “Porong” for short is near his late 60s but I still find him sincere with his words that were said between sips of Chongloi’s coffee at Luisa’s Café. I expected to meet a friend I used to see with his clean shaven face, but not this time because his untrimmed mustache and beard have grown longer like the wild Pine needles below and above the rocky Mountain Trail of old. He gave me the impression of a mountain man whose mind wanders if only to leave a legacy to younger generations.

Last week, the acquaintance I met decades ago surprisingly called to discuss over breakfast a project he is planning to revive after the folder gathered dust and slept long on a cabinet shelf in his ancestral home in Sabangan, Mountain Province.

Porong talked about Kafilig, the acronym for Kalawitan Agro-Forest Integrated Livelihood and Information Group. It was founded and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2005 but did not take off continuously as this was overtaken by personal problems. 

Aside from Porong, other personalities behind its founding are Ms. Lettie Pilando and Salvador Decoy, the Municipal Planning and Development Officer of Sabangan Municipality. Kafilig was organized primarily as an association of farmer-residents of barangay Losad, Sabangan before it evolved into the present Kafilig Marketing Cooperative. 

The cooperative aims to involve the farmer-residents into environmental conservation such as forest protection in terms of Pine Tree nursery propagation and sustaining traditional forest systems in order to support its oil extraction from Pine needles. The Kafilig project has a livelihood component that encourages farmers to diversify into coffee growing.

Gut-omen explained that raw oil extracted from Pine needles has a vast market in Asia and Europe as this has various uses, one of which is the Pine-scented perfume manufactured in Singapore and Italy. But while oil extraction from Pine needles can be a little destructive, the project enhances farmers as to the importance of forest protection and planting more trees instead of cutting. 

I suspect some government men hate the guts of Porong who holds on to good omen. He said the Pine needle oil extraction project is quite a risky undertaking but so far the research component has been assisted by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) that has provided Kafilig an extraction machine and a building near the Panorama Viewdeck at Losad while Vice Governor Bonifacio Lacwasan Jr. on the other hand gave assistance for the construction of a nursery for Pine Tree seedlings. 

To boost the DOST research, Porong admitted that a MOA between Kafilig and the DENR-ERDS has been prepared and is ready for signing.

In preparation for a wider coverage area for the project, farmer-residents who organized themselves as the Young Mothers Association requested for the improvement of the Kabatangan Farm to Market Road, an existing road that has become unpassable by motor vehicles for years because it has been ignored. 

The association members who got the nod of Congressman Max Dalog for his funding assistance said, repairing the damaged existing road to good use will certainly improve the lives and economy of households in Losad. 

With the revival of the DOST-DENR-LGU assisted Pine oil extraction research under the Kafilig Marketing Cooperative, the farmers expect an alternative livelihood program that they can hand down to the next generation.