Wednesday, October 15, 2008 Valdehuesa: Already neglected, further threatened By Manuel Valdehuesa Street Talk
ANYONE who cares about Cagayan de Oro cannot but be saddened at the neglect of its periphery. So much attention is paid to the poblacion and adjoining barangays, so little to the rest. This is understandable from the political standpoint, of course -- the poblacion impacts most on voters! But from the socioeconomic standpoint, it's disastrous for the city derives its critical life support from its periphery.
In the poblacion it's mostly office, commercial activity and the bureaucracy, which is supposed to serve everyone. Out in the periphery are farming and the environment that nurtures our air, water and land -- and where our food is grown. That's also our environment's most sensitive part, the watershed system, which includes the remaining forest cover that replenishes the underground water table beneath the upland barangays.
But drive to the uplands; you will weep at the primitive state of the road system beyond the highway. Go inland from the highway at Lumbia, Canito-an, Camaman-an or Aluba, it's rough going. Weeks ago, two colleagues went to Taglimao astride a motorcycle, just a few kilometers from Lumbia airport, to conduct a seminar. The roadbed proved so rough that on the way back, the motorcycle was damaged, forcing them to leave it behind and walk to the highway so they could catch their next appointment. Had they taken a car instead, the consequences would have been worse.
Then there's the atrocious water service. To this day, barangays situated amid the watershed zone have no decent water supply to their homes. Water is rationed three times weekly; other times the taps go dry. So the state of sanitation is primitive, with many homes without toilet facilities even in downstream barangays. Riversides, open fields or areas bush areas are not proper places for doing one's toilet functions in a first class city!
The neglect of the upland areas is a great disservice both to their populations and to the city's economy. The people there suffer from lack of livelihood opportunities. Even the productive ones have difficulty storing or transporting their harvest to the market. Many are unable to make ends meet from farming alone. Yet their areas teem with promising prospects for the growth and expansion of ecotourism in our region.
From Bayanga, just a few kilometers after the Airport, to Besigan; from Lumbia to Tumpagon, even a little attention from the bureaucrats in the poblacion and some deployment of city hall's operational capabilities would go a long way to developing their abundant resources - resources the residents themselves don't seem able to appreciate. The surface and sub-surface there form a complex of streams, caves, vertical and horizontal areas with great potential for ecotourism. But the barangay officials, mostly uneducated or undereducated, are unaided in their feeble efforts to coax productive activity in them. So their economies are moribund.
It's a pity that the city has no tourism-development program apart from promoting the already popular white-water rafting. With good infrastructure, the uplands could come alive with horse-trail riders along gentle hills and valleys, or wall-climbing and rappelling hobbyists down white cliffs - attracting them along with their dollars and pesos. There's possible hang-gliding on the promontory of high plateaus cascading down meadows and riverbanks.
Spelunking adventurers would revel in their exotic caves that lead to high and low gorges. There are camping grounds and tame outdoor sites on verdant zones for nature-tripping artists, poets and moody souls in search of quietude surrounded by greenery. For bird- or wildlife-watchers, there's rare flora and fauna in the area. But infrastructure and basic services are primitive.
Nature-friendly activities would boost economic development in a non-threatening way, creating jobs and productive pursuits while conserving the environment and the integrity of the ecological system. The local people themselves could serve as guides and scouts and protectors of their own heritage while earning from tourist pesos or dollars. Handicrafts from indigenous materials or forest products -- such as items made of nito vines or rattan -- would burgeon, as would farming and related activities.
Adjoining those upland barrios is the forest zone to the west which connect them to the banks of Iponan River -- already chocolate-colored and probably dead from abuse by unscrupulous operators mining and quarrying it at will from Tumpagon down to Pagatpat. Unchecked and unforgivably unregulated, all this is wreaking havoc on the watershed system.
Then here comes a toxic, polluting, cassava-based bio-ethanol processing plant proposed by a giant industrial conglomerate - and they allow it to be superimposed upon those upland environs! Instead of promoting nature-based activities, they industrialize the area. Don't tell me Cagayanos will take this sitting down. Paging Orlan Ravanera, Bency Ellorin, Jerome Garcia, Cocoy Rebuta!
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A former UN executive and director at the dev elopement academy of the Philippines, Manny writes here Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays.
