Road vs tree scenario also unfolds in Legazpi

LEGAZPI CITY—Environment advocates here have launched a campaign to stop a Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) plan to cut down 57 trees, some of which are 50 years old, along the main highway in Barangay Rawis in this city for a road widening project.

Vince Casilihan, a member of the nongovernment organization Pangataman Bikol, said they were alarmed at X marks painted on 57 agoho trees along the highway, near the Bicol regional center complex.

Casilihan, in a phone interview Friday, said the X marks meant the DPWH is set to cut the agoho trees, which his group estimated to be from 30 to 50 years old.

He said Pangataman Bikol has decided to gather signatures against the tree cutting through social media and by going on a house-to-house campaign. “We are aiming for at least one percent or 5,000 signatures to represent Albayano in the campaign,” he said.

Pangataman, created in 2008, has about of 200 members that include university students and school officials in Bicol. It is an affiliate of the Center for Environment Concerns, a national NGO on environment management issues, he said.

He said the group learned from village officials of Rawis that since Tuesday, DPWH had started consulting villagers about the plan to cut the trees.

He said this prompted Pangataman and other concerned residents of Albay to put up on Wednesday a public forum page in Facebook named “Save 57 trees marked for Murder in Rawis, Legazpi City.”

He said the government should find other ways to improve the city’s road system without cutting trees along existing roads.

Armando Estrella, DPWH Bicol assistant regional director, in an interview, said the P140-million road project is part of a plan to widen the road starting from Yawa Bridge from two lanes to four lanes to ease traffic in the area.

When Yawa Bridge was widened to four lanes in August 2014, the initial plan was to widen only the 140.5-meter long bridge but DPWH later decided to provide additional funds to extend the road widening to the next 946.45 meters of the road, said Estrella.

“If we really want to ease the traffic, we need to connect the bridge to the road of the same size, otherwise it would look like a funnel,” he said.

He said an additional 3.35 meters on both sides will be needed to expand to four lanes the road leading to Yawa Bridge. Estrella said the DPWH office doesn’t have a permit yet from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to cut the trees.

He said, however, “if the petition would stop our plan to cut trees, we will abide by it.”