CITY of Naga Mayor Val Chiong was joined by 2,500 government and private employees in planting 3,900 tree seedlings in Sitio Kaduldulan, Barangay Lutac, City of Naga.
Chiong said the activity was “to comply with requirements of DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) and to show that we in Naga are concerned about the environment.”
He challenged his critics from the environment advocacy not to focus their attention on his city, which is very accessible to the media.
“They should also go to places where there are illegal loggers but no media watching,” he said yesterday.
Chiong has been criticized by environmentalists, one of them Fr. Robert Reyes, for the cutting of 58 trees in Naga Central School to clear the area for the city’s planned sports oval.
But instead of planting only 2,900 seedlings as required by DENR, the mayor planted more.
“In my own little way, kada kaslon akong tagaan og duha ka narra seedling nga itanom (I will give two narra seedlings to every couple that’s getting married),” Chiong said.
He said he had invited his critics to join him in the tree-planting activity but none came.
As early as 5:30 a.m., the mayor was at the top of Sitio Kaduldulan 500 meters uphill from the main Naga-Uling Road and seven kilometers from Naga City proper.
Employees of City Hall, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, PNP and Department of Interior and Local Government personnel, students from Professional Academy of the Philippines and other schools, and private firm employees planted trees in their designated areas.
They were assisted by members of farmers’ groups. The seedlings came from the City’s nursery.
Chiong planted two-foot mahogany, narra and molave seedlings.
Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) employee Maryknoll Lague said three farmers’ associations in Barangays Tagjaguimit, Patag and Cabungahan assisted the participants by boring holes and guiding them around the three-hectare planting area.
Francisca Abalo, of Tagjaguimit, said it took them five days to prepare the area for yesterday’s activity.
Lague was with Cenro officer Raul Pasok. Staff member Stephanie Chan also joined the activity to guide planters on the proper way of planting trees.
Tagjaguimit farmers Cecilia Suazo and Jenny Manubag identified the seedlings distributed to the planters as mahogany, narra, chico and ipil-ipil. They also identified other indigenous seedlings such as aligasi, tugas and pangantoon.
The whole place is a timberland area, said Chiong. He earlier told tax declarants that the City will plant trees along the side of their occupied areas. He said 68 percent of Naga’s 101.97-square-kilometer area is timberland or owned by the state.
And once the City’s sports oval is completed, Fr. Reyes will be the mayor’s guest, Chiong said.
“Ako siyang imbitahon pagkahuman sa among oval. He will be the first to run (I will invite him to the oval),” said Chiong.