NGP transforms life timber poacher to forest
defender
By Eric F. Gallego
BUTUAN CITY, Apr. 11 (PIA) - A complete
transformation from being notorious timber poachers into defenders and
protectors of forest by a group of lumads in Barangay Padi-ay, Sibagat, Agusan
del Sur is unfolding before the eyes of the Department of Environment and
Natural Resources (DENR) 13 officials as offshoot of the National Greening
Program (NGP) of the government.
“I am happy to know that the NGP has able to
change the behavior and attitude of a group of Indigenous People known for
their notoriety as illegal loggers and poachers,“ DENR 13 regional director
Nonito M. Tamayo said.
Tamayo was referring to the Sibagat Federation of
Tribal Community Agro Farmers Development Association, Inc. (SFTCAFDAI), a
group of 21 peoples organizations ( PO)
headed by Arnold M. Acebido also known as Datu Subang who called on him at his
office early this week to personally convey the agreement reached by the
leaders of the federation in the “pulong-pulong” they conducted that night. The
federation, in a show of sincerity and appreciation to the NGP, would like to confer upon DENR Secretary
Ramon JP Paje and Director Tamayo the title of “Datu” and “adopted brothers” of
the Manobo tribe under the jurisdictions of Certificate of Ancestral Domain
Title (CADT) No. 116 covering 20,000 hectares and CADT 039 covering an area of
51,000 hectares.
According to Datu Subang their lives have been
changed completely to better owing to the NGP of Secretary Paje.
He said the whole members and families of the
Manobo indigenous people of the two CADTs are forever grateful to Secretary
Paje who introduced the program to the tribe through the DENR Regional
officials.
“We thought in previous years that no government
program was good enough to solve our financial needs until the implementation
of NGP in our area proved us wrong." Datu Subang said. “We realized the
NGP is more beneficial,“ he added.
Datu Subang is now maintaining a 70-hectare coffee
plantation in barangay Padi-ay, where virgin forests are still intact.
“Realizing that I am being left behind among my neighbors of the packages of
opportunities to earn income through the NGP offered by the DENR, I finally joined
the stream,” he said.
He said new learnings about business opportunities
through cash crop plantation like coffee was shared by Senator Bam Aquino in a
seminar. Hence, he said, the 21 chairmen of their federation went with him to
attend a short course about sustainable coffee plantation at Musuan State
University sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry.
Fresh from the seminar, Datu Subang requested for
coffee seedlings of Arabica and robusta varieties which he planted in between
the trees on a virgin-forest land in that mountain village. “Since the trees are very helpful in the
growth of coffee, we never thought of cutting but protected and preserved them,“ he said.
Datu Subang said at the height of illegal logging
activities in Agusan del Sur, the members of the federation were engaged in
timber poaching. “We cut those trees inside our ancestral domain,” he
said.
“We felt bitter when EO 23 was imposed by the DENR
hence, we could no longer trade freely those trees that we harvested,” Datu
Subang said. He said that he even bought a bulldozer to scrape those standing
trees in that vast virgin forest lands but he decided to resell the heavy
equipment at a much lower price when he thought otherwise the DENR operatives
will catch their activities up sooner or later.
He said the members of the federation are fully
convinced of the NGP. They are maintaining at least 1,200 hectares of rubber
and coffee plantation in that area. “We are waiting for the right season to
harvest coffee," said Datu Subang. By that time, he said, most of the
members of the federation will be millionaires.
Director Tamayo on the other hand offered the
technical expertise of the DENR to develop the area through the NGP. “We can
still develop more areas for expansion of the coffee and rubber trees within
the ancestral domain of Datu Subang,“ he said.
Director Tamayo said the DENR has intensified the
anti-illegal logging drive in Caraga Region which is aimed at eliminating
timber poaching and illegal logging activities by June 30, 2015.
He said Datu Subang could enlist some members of
the federation to be trained and deputized as forest officers to strengthen the
campaign. (DENR-Caraga/PIA-Caraga)
