In Naga roadwork, no need to cut trees

TREES are spared in this road-expansion project, which has reached Pili, Camarines Sur. JUAN ESCANDOR JR.

Spurred by mounting complaints against the toppling of trees along major roads, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in Bicol has adopted a new policy following the “tree line,” which aims to widen highways but sparing the trees.

Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson has set the tree-line rule in a memorandum on the implementation of road-widening projects without resorting to tree cutting, according to Lucy Castañeda, public information officer of the department’s regional office.

The rule, for example, saved the trees along the highway in Naga City and Pili, which was to be converted into a four-lane road. The project is being opposed by civil society groups, city government and several members of the provincial board.

Arnel Rodriguez, former provincial environment and natural resources officer, decided to save the trees after a consultation meeting between DPWH representatives and opponents of the tree cutting on July 8, 2013.

A total of 651 trees were untouched at the more than 7 kilometers of the planned P100-million road-widening project at the Maharlika Highway through a memorandum Rodriguez issued a week following the dialogue.

Rodriguez gave weight to the benefits from saving the 651 trees in Naga, including the production of oxygen, air-filter action, and the capacity to reduce heat and absorb air pollutants.

He turned down the DPWH request to cut the trees within the 26-meter road right-of-way for the project that the national government started in 2014.

The cutting of trees is not an option as the growing of trees takes years, Rodriguez said. It would just take minutes to cut them, he added.

He noted that the government had been spending millions of pesos in mounting campaigns for a green environment, such as the ordinary roadside tree-planting project to the Luntiang Pilipinas and Green Philippine Highway programs.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) launched Green Philippine Highways in August 2006, which involves the massive planting of trees along the country’s three major highways, including Maharlika or the 2,176-kilometer Pan Philippine Highway.

Castañeda said the road expansion projects were part of the Asian economic integration pact in which the Philippine highway was assigned the code “AH26” or Asian Highway 26.

The “adjustment” in the road-widening projects is being implemented in places where opposition to tree cutting is present and where the DENR is not issuing permits to cut trees, she said.

But Castañeda said that in areas where there are no obstacles to tree cutting, like in Sorsogon City, the four-lane expansion of the highway would be fully implemented.