Bold Baguio execs tell bald Aquino jokes for tree planting

Baguio City, Philippines—Officials here openly punned about that certain “problem” of President Benigno Aquino III as a way to attract volunteers for his administration’s reforestation program in northern Luzon.

“When we fulfill this task, nothing will remain bald in this country except our President,” said Remigio de Leon, assistant secretary for Luzon of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

In February, Mr. Aquino issued Executive Order No. 26 establishing the National Greening Program and enjoining every Filipino to plant 10 trees each year until 1.5 billion trees are planted by the end of his six-year term.

De Leon made the facetious, if not audacious, remark onstage before representatives of various Cordillera schools and agencies, spawning more hairloss jokes in the gathering at Thursday’s regional launch of the government’s National Greening Program (NGP).

When it was her turn to speak, University of the Cordillera vice president Leonarda Aguinalde said that while her school would commit its resources to the campaign, she also looked forward to seeing “a greening project for balding men.”

“It’s not just our President who has that problem,” Aguinalde said.

Yearend targets

Mr. Aquino himself had occasionally poked fun at his thinning pate since his 2010 presidential campaign, even with image gurus (including his celebrity sister Kris) giving unsolicited advice for him to do something about it.

After the chuckles had died down, Thursday’s program nonetheless secured the commitment of 35 Baguio-based agencies and schools to the NGP.

For the Cordillera campaign, NGP volunteers are being called to plant 3.4 million trees on 6,838 hectares of land before the year ends.

In the Ilocos region, the target is to cover idle lands in the provinces of Pangasinan, La Union, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur with 2.5 million trees this year.

In mock seriousness, De Leon said DENR officials who would fail to meet these targets could be forcibly retired.

“I told all the regional directors in a recent forum that if we can’t (fulfill our targets), the Penros (provincial environment and natural resources officers) and Cenros (city environment and natural resources officers) will have to retire,” he said.

Biggest in 25 years

“This is the biggest, most ambitious reforestation project of the country, surpassing the reforestation programs of the past 25 years, the official stressed.

In Dagupan City on Wednesday, DENR-Ilocos Director Samuel Peñafiel said the tree-planting program would cover 1,950 ha in Pangasinan, 500 ha in La Union, 1,200 ha in Ilocos Sur and 1,350 ha in Ilocos Norte.

He noted that of the region’s total land area of 1.2 million ha, 473,000 ha have been classified as forest lands but that 268,440 ha of these are currently denuded.

Green Highways

Before the NGP, the last major regreening project was the P200-million Green Philippine Highways program launched in 2006 by then Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes and Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane.

Reyes and Ebdane then mobilized government employees to plant trees along the 3,439-km Pan Philippine Highways from Laoag City to Davao City and from Batangas City to Zamboanga Sibugay.

“[The NGP] aims for long-term sustainability,” Panafiel said. “Here we do not just plant trees. We protect them and make sure they grow.”

The program also seeks to promote indigenous tree species, restore biodiversity in Philippine forests, mitigate the effects of climate change, and provide livelihood for upland dwellers, he said.

Under the program, 70 percent of the seedlings to be planted would be timber trees while 30 percent would be fruit-bearing varieties.