MAASIM, Sarangani -- Twenty-one-year-old future educator Ruben Isla, Jr. laughingly admitted he didn’t know there is a tree called Dalingdingan (Hopea Malibato) in his birthplace in Sitio Kyumad, a predominantly Blaan village in the hinterland village of Amsipit.
Ruben, Jr., fondly called “Toh,” by his friends and relatives was one of the 250 Blaan youth volunteers tapped by Sarangani Energy Corporation (SEC), a unit of the Alsons Power Group, and the Conrado & Ladislawa Alcantara Foundation, Inc. (Clafi) in a tree inventory activity in Barangay Amsipit Friday, June 2.
The program, which was launched on May 2 this year directs at providing summer job to both the in-school and out-of-school youth in the village, with a daily allowance pegged at 100 pesos.
Their chores vary from measurement of the trees’ canopy, height and circumference to fruit evaluation, recording and documenting the trees’ condition recording and tree - tagging. The tree inventory forms part of SEC’s on-going Watershed Protection Project (WPP), aimed at reforesting 7,500 hectares, an area bigger than the City of Manila and over twice the size of Makati City — within a 15-year period, to protect the Siguil and Kamanga River watersheds in Maasim.
The project encompasses villages Amsipit, Pananag, Lumatil, Kablacan, Nomoh and Bales. The power company will plant a total of 3.75 million seedlings of indigenous tree species and commercial agro-forestry crops such as coffee, guyabano, cashew among others.
“Most, if not all of them are children of our farmer-beneficiaries,” said Angelie Christie Budo, CLAFI’s environment program coordinator. Touted as the biggest environmental undertaking in Sarangani in terms of land area, WPP ensures the livelihood of at least 500 resident families from the B’laan and T’boli indigenous communities who are organized under the Maasim Highland Farmer’s Association (MHFA).
Beneficiary families of the MHFA protect and cultivate the planted seedlings and in turn, harvest and market the products of the trees and agricultural crops once they bear fruit. MHFA families keep all the proceeds from the sale of the harvested crops from the watershed protection area.
SEC also provides the MHFA families with a regular stipend and farming implements.
SEC and the MHFA are implementing the program in partnership with the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Provincial Government of Sarangani, the Municipality of Maasim, and the various barangays and communities within the project site.
“Toh,” whose namesake - father is the chairman of MHFA and the sitio’s tribal chieftain described his first encounter with the tree-specie being more commercially known as Yakal-Kaliot, as more of a troubling rather than an exciting experience. He said the feeling has stemmed upon learning that the tree he had just measured, assessed, tagged and documented is one of the top 20 most endangered species in the country.
Erec Fanggolo was grateful that a summer job program for the youth had opened in his community.
A widow’s son who keeps at school through the local government’s scholarship program, Erec told this writer the summer job provided him with significant help in augmenting his studies come opening of class in the coming weeks in the City of Koronadal.
“This is far better than caring less, doing nothing. I hope this will continue because it helps a lot of poor students in Amsipit like me,” Fanggolo said. But more than the financial gain, the 3rd year BS in Elementary Education student had cherished a new-found realization upon joining the program.
“Because every little step we take today will bring giant impact in the future," he said in a mix of Blaan and Cebuano.