Don't waste those runaway logs
Don't waste those runaway logs
Updated 11:44pm (Mla time) Jan 09, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 10, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
THE LOGS that were washed down the mountainsides during the last typhoon, killing hundreds of people and flattening entire villages in Infanta, (Quezon), and in Real and Nakar (Aurora), could cause more deaths if the government wouldn't do something about them immediately. A war is about to break out between the residents of the three towns and the workers of a sawmill over these logs littering the seashores and floating on the sea and river.
The residents are making them into charcoal while the workers of the sawmill are gathering them to be sawn into lumber. For the residents, who have lost their means of livelihood after their farms were covered with mud and their fishing boats carried away by the floods, charcoal-making is their only way to earn a living. The sawmill, they say, should not take away the logs as these were the same logs that killed their loved ones and neighbors and destroyed their homes. They also insist that the logs, whose ownership can no longer be traced, don't belong to the sawmill.
After causing so much death and destruction, the logs should now be public property. The loggers should not only apologize to the residents; they should be charged in court for the damage that they have wrought.
But the greedy sawmill wants the logs for its own use.
The government should step in before the war erupts. It should confiscate all the logs, set up its own sawmill near the beach, saw the logs into lumber, give the lumber to the residents for them to use in rebuilding their homes; the remnants to be made into charcoal. The government should employ as many jobless residents as possible to gather the logs and to work in the sawmill.
Making whole logs into charcoal-which is what the residents are doing-is wasting a finite natural resource. Sawing them into lumber (only what is left should be made into charcoal) is the better alternative. Even the sawdust can be processed into charcoal bricks. Some of the lumber can be sold to fill the needs of the construction industry so that no new trees will have to be cut down.
But the lumber-sawing should not be done by the private sawmill. They no longer have any right to these logs. It would be an insult to the residents to deprive them of the use of the wood from these logs, after the logs have destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones.
The government should be the one to exercise ownership over the logs. And it should file charges against the loggers. But the government is not even moving in that direction. What is Environment Secretary Mike Defensor doing?
There's smoke day and night rising from the hundreds of charcoal kilns on the beaches of Infanta, Real and Nakar. Sacks of charcoal line the roads; they are being sold at bargain prices. Charcoal-making is the only means of livelihood of the people there. They need the help of the administration of President Macapagal-Arroyo-help that comes not only in the form of press releases, speeches, visits to the disaster areas or relief goods distribution; but real help in action, help that enables the people to rebuild their lives.
First, they have to have homes. And the building materials are there, scattered all over the place. They just have to be sawn into lumber.
Next, the people need jobs. Most of the people are farmers and fishermen. But they cannot for now farm because their fields are covered with mud, and they cannot go fishing because they have lost their boats.
So the people have turned to charcoal-making (polluting their own air), wasting precious wood that can be put to better use for the construction of their homes.
The Bureau of Agricultural Extension should teach and help the farmers to rehabilitate their fields and the Bureau of Fisheries should lend the fishermen funds with which to buy new boats. Meanwhile the Department of Environment and Natural Resources should give them jobs in the sawmill, in the gathering of logs and in the construction of new homes. GMA should not only pay lip service to helping the poor. She should do something concrete to help them.
She went to Indonesia to hobnob with world leaders and had her picture taken with them as they discussed ways of helping the victims of the tsunamis. But our President has forgotten her countrymen who were also victims of a natural disaster that was just as deadly.
* * *
The Metro Manila Development Authority will set up "loading bays" for buses along Edsa in another attempt to ease the traffic on this thoroughfare. "Loading bay" is just another name for "bus terminal," where buses will wait while they are not needed. They will be dispatched as passengers need them. That way they will not clog the whole Edsa as they wait for and pick up a few passengers.
Our problem in Metro Manila is that there is an overpopulation of vehicles, and the big lumbering buses that are not needed take up most of the street space. The Department of Transportation and Communication went overboard in encouraging operators to buy and field more buses-even giving out loans for the purpose-back when there was a shortage of public utility vehicles plying Edsa. But the DOTC did not know when to say "Stop." Now there are too many buses and there are not enough passengers to fill them. If DOTC officials will only get out of their air-conditioned offices, they will see the hordes of buses, with hardly any passengers, lined up bumper-to-bumper, wasting precious fuel and dollars that we pay to buy the oil. It is time to cull the excess buses.
(To be continued)
Updated 11:44pm (Mla time) Jan 09, 2005
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the January 10, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
THE LOGS that were washed down the mountainsides during the last typhoon, killing hundreds of people and flattening entire villages in Infanta, (Quezon), and in Real and Nakar (Aurora), could cause more deaths if the government wouldn't do something about them immediately. A war is about to break out between the residents of the three towns and the workers of a sawmill over these logs littering the seashores and floating on the sea and river.
The residents are making them into charcoal while the workers of the sawmill are gathering them to be sawn into lumber. For the residents, who have lost their means of livelihood after their farms were covered with mud and their fishing boats carried away by the floods, charcoal-making is their only way to earn a living. The sawmill, they say, should not take away the logs as these were the same logs that killed their loved ones and neighbors and destroyed their homes. They also insist that the logs, whose ownership can no longer be traced, don't belong to the sawmill.
After causing so much death and destruction, the logs should now be public property. The loggers should not only apologize to the residents; they should be charged in court for the damage that they have wrought.
But the greedy sawmill wants the logs for its own use.
The government should step in before the war erupts. It should confiscate all the logs, set up its own sawmill near the beach, saw the logs into lumber, give the lumber to the residents for them to use in rebuilding their homes; the remnants to be made into charcoal. The government should employ as many jobless residents as possible to gather the logs and to work in the sawmill.
Making whole logs into charcoal-which is what the residents are doing-is wasting a finite natural resource. Sawing them into lumber (only what is left should be made into charcoal) is the better alternative. Even the sawdust can be processed into charcoal bricks. Some of the lumber can be sold to fill the needs of the construction industry so that no new trees will have to be cut down.
But the lumber-sawing should not be done by the private sawmill. They no longer have any right to these logs. It would be an insult to the residents to deprive them of the use of the wood from these logs, after the logs have destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones.
The government should be the one to exercise ownership over the logs. And it should file charges against the loggers. But the government is not even moving in that direction. What is Environment Secretary Mike Defensor doing?
There's smoke day and night rising from the hundreds of charcoal kilns on the beaches of Infanta, Real and Nakar. Sacks of charcoal line the roads; they are being sold at bargain prices. Charcoal-making is the only means of livelihood of the people there. They need the help of the administration of President Macapagal-Arroyo-help that comes not only in the form of press releases, speeches, visits to the disaster areas or relief goods distribution; but real help in action, help that enables the people to rebuild their lives.
First, they have to have homes. And the building materials are there, scattered all over the place. They just have to be sawn into lumber.
Next, the people need jobs. Most of the people are farmers and fishermen. But they cannot for now farm because their fields are covered with mud, and they cannot go fishing because they have lost their boats.
So the people have turned to charcoal-making (polluting their own air), wasting precious wood that can be put to better use for the construction of their homes.
The Bureau of Agricultural Extension should teach and help the farmers to rehabilitate their fields and the Bureau of Fisheries should lend the fishermen funds with which to buy new boats. Meanwhile the Department of Environment and Natural Resources should give them jobs in the sawmill, in the gathering of logs and in the construction of new homes. GMA should not only pay lip service to helping the poor. She should do something concrete to help them.
She went to Indonesia to hobnob with world leaders and had her picture taken with them as they discussed ways of helping the victims of the tsunamis. But our President has forgotten her countrymen who were also victims of a natural disaster that was just as deadly.
* * *
The Metro Manila Development Authority will set up "loading bays" for buses along Edsa in another attempt to ease the traffic on this thoroughfare. "Loading bay" is just another name for "bus terminal," where buses will wait while they are not needed. They will be dispatched as passengers need them. That way they will not clog the whole Edsa as they wait for and pick up a few passengers.
Our problem in Metro Manila is that there is an overpopulation of vehicles, and the big lumbering buses that are not needed take up most of the street space. The Department of Transportation and Communication went overboard in encouraging operators to buy and field more buses-even giving out loans for the purpose-back when there was a shortage of public utility vehicles plying Edsa. But the DOTC did not know when to say "Stop." Now there are too many buses and there are not enough passengers to fill them. If DOTC officials will only get out of their air-conditioned offices, they will see the hordes of buses, with hardly any passengers, lined up bumper-to-bumper, wasting precious fuel and dollars that we pay to buy the oil. It is time to cull the excess buses.
(To be continued)
posted by Dante at 10:53 PM
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