GENTLEMEN Anecito Aquino and Gilbert Gonzales are one in not seeing anything wrong with the “earth-balling” of 934 mangrove trees in Dumanjug town, Cebu.
Aquino is head of the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro)-Argao, while Gonzales is Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) 7 regional executive director.
On Feb. 11, 2019, the DENR 7, through the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB), issued the Cebu 4th Engineering Office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) 7 the permit to earth-ball three species of mangroves in the area (412 bungalon, 26 pagatpat and 490 bakawan). The area where the trees were had to be cleared to pave way for a road-widening project and flood-mitigating infrastructure. Along with the deal was for the contractor to come up with mitigating measures against flooding, must move the mangroves near the vicinity of Barangay Tapon and replace one damaged mangrove with five mangroves within six months after earth-balling.
Gonzales said the law prohibiting the cutting of mangroves in seashores is not absolute and it may be allowed in cases like a road-widening project.
He said government’s “eminent domain” over lands is constitutional and not allowing the DPWH to widen roads is tantamount to obstruction.
Gonzales cited a little of bit of history, saying that in the 1950’s and 1960’s, when government opened roads in coastal towns, the roads were supposed to have four lanes, but since it didn’t find immediate need with fewer residents in these areas, it decided to pave two-lane highways instead.
“That means if it (DPWH) will widen the entire span, the mangroves within the areas will be affected and shall be taken out. There were no mangroves when that specific Dumanjug road was opened,” Gonzales said.
Aquino’s singular mind, on the other hand, merely rests on the argument that DPWH’s contractor complied with the requirements set for the issuance of the earth-balling permit. They could not do anything but green-light the project.
Unfortunately, though, for Aquino and Gonzales, the Tapon, Dumanjug case had caused a stir on social media after lawyer and environmentalist activist Gloria Estenzo Ramos cried foul over the earth-balling of 934 mangrove trees.
Ramos, who is vice president of Oceana Philippines, said the mangroves are part of the Tañon Strait Protected Area Seascape and covered by the Expanded National Integrated Areas System Act. She said uprooting, even earth-balling of mangrove trees, is tantamount to killing them.
To cite a distant example, in March last year, the DENR Western Visayas Director Jim Sampulna stopped the earth-balling of mangroves as part of the expansion of the Iloilo River park project.
“This will be stopped. Transplanting mangroves results to a very low survival rate,” Sampulna said.
The irony is that mangroves, divinest of designs against nature’s lashing, are to be removed by man-made engineering. What in the world is wrong with some people?
Not a few residents in Tapon, Dumanjug bear witness to the rather negligent ways the “earth-balled” trees were treated. They said the trees were merely dumped in the corner, some pruned and some chopped for firewood.
This is a rather painful sight for those who have seen this once lush vegetation in Tapon for decades now being systematically exterminated by bureaucrats with the poorest imagination about development.