TABUK CITY, Kalinga – In reaction to news reports that the government’s Enhanced National Greening Program (ENGP) has the lion’s share of the 2019 proposed budget of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Kalinga Anti-pollution Action Group (KAPAG), an environmental advocate in the province, is calling for an overhaul of the program.
The DENR is requesting an allocation of P5.15B for the ENGP for 2019. The 2018 funding of the program is P7.1B or 26 percent of the agency’s P27.1B budget for the year.
“We support the program provided that it be overhauled. It is a good program but the implementation needs improvement. Changes should be made in the attitude of DENR personnel and in the actual implementation of the program to ensure that the seedlings thrive,” Rev. Luis Aoas, KAPAG chairman, said.
Aoas pointed out that for one, unless the observed attitude among DENR personnel that their responsibility ends at the planting of the seedlings is changed, the objectives of the program will never be attained.
Aoas explained that the attitude is manifested in the inadequate provision for the maintenance of the plantations until the seedlings reach sapling stage or have passed the delicate stage and also the deficient mechanisms and funding for the protection of plantations from fires.
Aoas commented that in every human endeavour, a certain amount of care must be applied in order for the undertaking to attain the desired results and that generally speaking, this element appears to be missing when it comes to NGP plantations.
Aoas also said that the implementers should be truthful in their reports so that the real state of the reforestation program could be ascertained at any given time to enable the immediate application of solutions to problems encountered.
Aoas is referring to the finding of an inspection conducted by the KAPAG and the Tabuk Multi-purpose Cooperative (TAMPCO) in 2016 covering 27 NGP plantations in Benguet, Ifugao, Mtn. Province, Apayao and Kalinga that the DENR-Cordillera is bloating the survival rates of NGP plantations.
Bloating of survival rates
Of the 27 sites they visited, the monitoring team questioned the survival rates of 21 sites appearing in the March 22, 2016 validation report of DENR-CAR.
In a re-validation conducted by the DENR-CAR on the 21 sites visited by the monitoring team in Benguet, Ifugao, Mtn. Province and Apayao, the DENR-CAR maintained the survival rates in 13 sites but reflected lower ratings for the eight remaining sites from 6 to 62 percent for an average of 29.095 percent.
The monitoring team rejected the explanation of the DENR-CAR that the difference between their March 22, 2016 figures with their re-validation figures was due to mortality “given the abnormally high percentage of dying plants in so short a time and likewise the fact that the plants were supposed to be already more than two years old which means they were past the delicate stage.”
The site which incurred the most decrease in survival rating in the re-validation is the 25- hectare Adaan, Favoyan, Maconig, Finnakar Association project in Maligcong, Bontoc, Mtn. Province. From the 85 percent survival rate in March 22, 2016, the site merited only 23 percent in the re-validation for a difference of 62 percent. The KAPAG monitoring team had given the site which was planted in 2011 a 5 percent survival rate.
For the 7-hectare site of the Central Ambassador Women’s Association, Inc. in Caponga, Barangay Tublay, Benguet, the DENR-CAR scaled down the 92.29 percent survival rating in March 22, 2016 to 50 percent in the re-validation. The monitoring team had pegged the survival rate at 10 percent.
On the basis of the findings from the investigation, the KAPAG and TAMPCO along with fellow Kalinga civil society organizations (CSOs) Kalinga and Apayao Religious Sector Association and Episcopal Diocese of Northern Luzon have requested the Senate, DENR and Malacanang to conduct inquiries to find out if the exaggeration of survival rates is also happening in the other regions.
They said in their letters that the practice of bloating survival rate is dangerous because if forests could be “created” by DENR personnel through fabricated reports, there would be no more compelling motive for them to grow and develop forests.
Other findings
The CSOs found that the program is hobbled by many policy flaws foremost of which are the contract which does not impose accountability and liability on the NGP partner organizations or people’s organizations (POs) for what happens to the plantation, absence of clear criteria in the selection of POs and the project being too massive and ambitious.
They say that the “toothless contract” “confines itself with the activities on the first three years of the project and is silent of the fate of the project beyond that.”
They say that the DENR people the monitoring team talked to have admitted that this is a serious concern because of the tendency of most POs to stop tending to the project the moment the funds run out after the third year.
They reported that this was the explanation given why the Central Ambassador Women’s Association, Inc. project in Caponga and the 24.6-hectare Baayan Panatagan Farmers’ MPC project in Ambongdolan, both in Tublay, Benguet, and the 49.9-hectare Flora Primemovers Association for Sustainable Development in Lower Atok, Flora, Apayao and the 68.1-hectare Balasi Upland Farmers’ Association in Balasi, also in Luna, Apayao all of which have been all but abandoned by the POs.
The CSOs say that the faulty contract is compounded by the lack of criteria in the selection of POs or if criteria are in place, the non-compliance therewith.
They say that the case of Baayan Panatagan Farmers’ MPC illustrates the mad rush with which the DENR wants to reforest because apart from their project which was visited by the monitoring team, they are handling 39 other projects.
The CSOs also alleged that the implementation of the program in the region is shot through with ineptness citing the case of foresters in Benguet not knowing that coffee trees do not thrive under pine trees and only learning about this on the second year when the coffee planted by POs become stunted, the planting on pasturelands and the failure to anticipate the widening of roads specifically in the case of the 4-hectare site of the Lappa, Luna, Apayao BLGU.
The monitoring team noted that even with the admission of the concerned DENR personnel that the area was halved by the widening of the road, it still got an 85 percent survival rate in the March 22, 2016 validation.
Side of the DENR-CAR
Asked for comments on the report, DENR-CAR Director Ralph Pablo noted that the report affirms that there are sites with high survival rates but there are “varying people’s perspectives and threats in the surroundings that impact on survival rates.”
The monitoring team gave 14 sites 60 percent survival rates upwards including four sites wherein they remarked “could be” to the survival ratings given be the DENR-CAR. The team considers 60 percent survival rate already passable.
Pablo wrote that the sites are vulnerable to “unexpected destructions which lead to lower survival rates” but the DENR personnel and the POs or partners involved always try to replace the plants that die even as he pointed out that even the monitoring team of the CSOs found sites with high survival rates.
He said that it is unfortunate the monitoring team just presumed low survival rates for some of the visited sites even as he claimed that the DENR does 100 percent counting and identification of plants through the latest technology which includes the overlaying of geotagged photos of the validated planted seedlings in Google Earth.
Regarding the Cawagayan Mapaco Forestland Management Association plantation, Pablo said the PO blames cattle owners in the villages of Pakawit and Masablang for loosing their animals into the plantation at night by opening the fence gates but measures have already been taken to improve survival rates including holding dialogues with officials and cattle owners of the two villages and the conduct of constant monitoring by the site manager to ensure that the PO will perform.
The monitoring team had given the site 10 percent survival rate in contrast to the 86.31 percent in the March 22, 2016 validation report of the DENR-CAR.
Pablo also said the DENR is presently conducting performance assessment of the NGP which is expected in result to policy adjustments in the near future.
Pablo was silent on the challenge of the CSOs contained in the report that in the event the DENR-CAR disputes the finding of bloating of survival rates, they are willing to conduct joint visits of more randomly picked sites with lapsed contracts with neutral parties including the media as witnesses.
Neither did Pablo address the issue of bloating of survival rates.**Estanislao Albano, Jr.
