I WAS scrolling through Facebook early last week when a post showing a huge brown scar across the green slopes of the Sierra Madre caught my attention. It was disturbing, especially as every year, we continue to face flooded homes, submerged roads and ruined livelihoods.
It is frustrating and ironic how we complain about the floods, yet we keep damaging the natural world that helps protect us. Have we learned nothing from Mother Nature?
According to the Philippine Information Agency, around 12,000 trees, including smaller ones, were cut in a 15-hectare area for the operations of Dinapigue Mining Corporation in Isabela. The Mines and Geosciences Bureau said the site was outside the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park and its buffer zone, and that the company had the required permits.
The company is required to plant 100 trees for every tree cut.
But can we replace a forest simply by planting more trees?
Those 12,000 trees were not just numbers on a report. Many had taken years to grow. Mature trees hold soil, help regulate water and provide shelter for wildlife. Seedlings cannot do all these things overnight. Some may not even survive.
A hundred seedlings cannot instantly replace one mature tree. And a permit cannot erase the damage that may follow.
To be fair, we cannot blame this mining operation for floods in other parts of the country. Flooding has many causes, including extreme rainfall, climate change, poor drainage and bad land-use decisions. But forests help protect watersheds. When we damage them, we risk making vulnerable communities even more exposed.
This is what makes our situation so frustrating. Every year, floods disrupt lives across the country. Families clean their mud-filled homes. Farmers count their losses. Children miss classes. Workers struggle to earn a living.
We call for help and promise to do better. But when the waters recede, how often do we return to business as usual?
We cannot keep blaming climate change while ignoring the damage we do ourselves. We cannot demand protection from nature while treating its natural defenses as disposable.
Mining may bring jobs and income. But who checks if the planted trees survive? Who ensures that water remains clean and rehabilitation is real? And who answers when companies fail to meet their obligations?
We already have laws on mining, clean water and forest protection. We may need stronger safeguards, but laws mean little without strict and consistent enforcement. Government must monitor operations, make findings public and hold violators accountable. Companies must prove that rehabilitation works, not merely promise it.
Nature has been warning us for years. Floods are not the only warning. Every damaged forest is another.
True, we cannot stop every storm. But we can stop making our communities more vulnerable than they need to be.
The saddest part is not that nature keeps teaching us the same lesson. It is that, after all the floods and all the losses, we still refuse to learn.
