Also, in the last three months of last year, the low-lying areas of the province were hit by two big floods, including this commercial center. Heavy damaged on standing rice and vegetable crops amounting to more than P7 billion was reported and silt descended on roads, farms, and residential and commercial areas.
Rocks, logs and other debris also rolled down from the mountains into rice fields in the eastern part of the province as the floods swept through the farms.
The floods were from 16 debris flows, as reported by the Department of Science and Technology, in the different barangays in Bongabon, Dingalan, and Laur towns.
“Debris flow” is described as the most dangerous hazard in the world as it carried slurries of water, rocks, soil, sands, and other debris.
“They could be the effects of the devastation of the Sierra Madre mountain in Nueva Ecija,” said retired Catholic priest Fr. Apollo de Guzman, president of the “Pederasyon ng mga Novo Ecijano Para sa Kalikasan” (Federation of Novo Ecijanos for the Environment).
The federation is composed of about a hundred church-based, tribal, farmers, concerned citizens’ organizations, and an outreach international group. After years of rallies supporting the call to stop illegal logging and degradation of the environment, the federation is now advocating for a no-nonsense program for a massive tree-planting program on the mountain range.
“From the foothills up to the peak of the Sierra Madre Mountains in the eastern and southern part of Nueva Ecija, it is now one hundred percent denuded,” de Guzman said. “We can assert this as we visit and survey with our eyes the mountain areas.”
The retired priest, who is also director of the Diocesan Tribal Apostolate of the Diocese of Cabanatuan, constantly visits the Aeta resettlement community he helped establish within the army reservation in Fort Magsaysay after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
The place is now a model community for reforested area and livelihood development.
Logging
He was sure that the total degradation of the mountain in the eastern part of Nueva Ecija up to Bulacan was due to illegal logging carried out by big-time loggers and those engaged in “carabao logging” (hauling of felled logs by carabao).
He said this happened even though the government imposed logging moratorium in the province in 1986 due to “forest degradation and violations” (logging rules).
“Nueva Ecija is ideal for illegal logging as it has many entrance and exit points from the eastern, southern and northern parts of the province. The operators could have bribed their way out otherwise the felled logs could not had been shipped out of the province by land and the sea through the Dingalan Bay in Aurora,” de Guzman said.
De Guzman also lamented the breaking out of brush fires every now and then on the mountain and mountain slopes which could either be intentional and unintentional. The intentional ones could be caused by farmers or ranchers owning cows to allow new grass growth for the grazing of their animals, he said.
“We need to have a no-nonsense reforestation program to rehabilitate our forest covers in the mountain. Otherwise, the coming of floods in the province will further intensify and the heat index may reach the danger level in the years to come,” de Guzman said.
He emphasized the words “no-nonsense reforestation program” as the previous ones carried under the government’s Integrated Forest Management Agreement (500 to 40,000 hectares) and Family, People’s Organization, and Community Organization reforestation program (1 to 500 hectares) did not yield palpable good results. The millions of pesos spent for these programs may have been just pocketed by the contractors, he added.
“We call upon the next administration to institute a program with appropriate budget to plant bamboos, fruit trees, especially casoy, and forest trees in our mountains in Nueva Ecija. It must be done otherwise our palay, onion and other crops’ harvest may continue to dwindle and our provincemates will reel under dangerous heat index or bodily discomfort during the summer period,” de Guzman said.
