Pangasinan board probes cutting of trees for road widening

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan , Philippines   â€“ The provincial board here will probe today local officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on the controversial cutting of trees along the national highway.

This came as some groups petitioned the DPWH road-widening project to save the remaining trees marked for cutting.

“The Sangguniang Panlalawigan needs to find out the impact to the environment of the cutting down of old trees along the thoroughfares of Pangasinan and the other options being considered by the concerned authorities to save those trees,” stated a resolution approved last week by the provincial board for its invitation to agencies for its Question Hour. 

The president of the Pangasinan Federation of Non-Government Organizations Inc. is also invited to brief the board on this issue.

Earlier, former Pangasinan congressman Mark Cojuangco admitted pushing concerned government agencies to go ahead with the cutting of trees along the national highway in the province’s fifth district.

He said there should be a fresh approach to environmentalism as regards trees along the national highway.

“A tree that is on a wrong place is bad for our environment… because it becomes a public nuisance and public hazard,” he said.

“We are not arbitrarily against trees; as a matter of fact, we are for more trees but trees in the right place,” he said.

“If you plant a tree in the middle of the highway, it’s the wrong place to plant a tree; you will cause accidents,” he added.

Cojuangco said he would gladly attend the provincial board’s Question Hour should he be invited to explain why they need to cut the trees.

He said he has some pictures showing fallen branches of old trees damaging some vehicles and houses, especially during typhoons.

Running priest Fr. Robert Reyes, who led some protesters here, said, “Why don’t we learn from the lessons of (Super Typhoon) Yolanda?”

Reyes said he is concerned about “how politicians are at the forefront of the genocide of trees and also why in general the people are quiet, and also why the church is also quiet.”

He asked his fellow priests in Pangasinan to hold a rally to save the remaining trees, which he said are God’s creations.

His group brought a poster that read “Thou shall not kill” which he said “does not only apply to human beings but applies also to anything that has life.”

“The killing is totally unnecessary,” he said, blaming the local and national officials of the DENR for not protecting the trees against cutting.

Based on the latest inventory made by the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office in Urdaneta City, only 57 percent, or 1,042 of 1,829 trees given permits, had been cut.

Permits for cutting have been issued for other trees for other road-widening projects in Pangasinan.