BAUKO, Mountain Province -- The local chief executive of this vegetable farming municipality called on barangay officials to enhance their forest protection drives to secure the mountains from fires.
Bauko Mayor Abraham Akilit, in a joint meeting of the Municipal Peace and Order Council, Municipal Anti-Drug Abuse Council and the People’s Law Enforcement Board, pressed barangay chairmen to intensify their forest protection measures to ensure no mountain in their respective barangays is burned this coming dry season.
Akilit stressed that while forest protection needs a concerted efforts from the local residents, barangay officials should still police their own constituents, adding forest fire incidents should be investigated and individuals found to have caused the fire will be held responsible.
He said if the forest fire is caused by children, the parents will be held liable.
Akilit also advised teachers to continuously promote fire safety and encouraged their school children to be always fire safety-conscious.
An advocate of natural farming, Akilit advised his constituent-farmers not to burn the weeds, which should be composed to fertilize their plants instead.
Bureau of Fire and Protection (BFP) offices attributed the causes of most forest fires to human activities, such as unattended trash burning from the kaingins/farms and improper disposal of lighted cigarette butts.
During the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council First Quarter meeting, BFP Provincial Fire Marshall Fire Chief Floyd Toyokan urged barangay officials to come up with their respective ordinances penalizing individuals found causing mountain fires.
He said barangays with ordinances are reported to have lesser or zero incidence of fire.
Local officials and some concerned sectors have been calling for the protection and preservation of the remaining forest covers not only as natural attraction, but considering the fact that the province is part of the watershed cradles of Northern Luzon. (PIA)