Guardians of Watersheds Part 2
May 2014
May 21st, at seven o'clock while I was waiting at the jeepney bay under Katipunan
Avenue overpass. Many of the street sleepers were
still asleep in spite of the noise from motor vehicles. I counted more than twenty, some of them with
children, scattered around the pavement across the church. Their skin and
clothing darkened in the black carbon (soot) from vehicles. I promised myself
that one of these days, I will visit with them. Soon, my friends arrived then we took the jeep to Cogeo, then to
Laiban. Three motorcycles were waiting
for us to go down to the village.
Tonet, one of the community leaders in Laiban, guided the two other drivers. He assigned me to ride the “heavy duty” motorcycle;
we all laughed hard when I told him, “You did not have to be so obvious about
my weight!” The motorcycle made it
easier on the rough road although the bumps on the unpaved roads are hard on anyone's back.
Along the side
of the road, I noticed freshly burned terrain on both sides of the road, a sign
of “slash and burn”, also called swidden (kaingin) activities[1]
. As far as my eye can reach, I can see
so many burned areas. I asked the driver
about it, and he said, “These burnings are not permitted, but many people do it
at night. They do that to prepare the land for vegetable farming and make charcoal to sell.” The lands around the watershed are
mountainous, and there is very little flat area for agriculture. What these farmers do not understand is that
stripping the mountains of trees and other plants will lead to desertification
and denudation of top soil to the rivers, thus filling the river with
silts. Precipitation will also decrease because of lack of trees and vegetation in the area; it will prolong
droughts during summer months. Flash
flooding presents another danger awaiting the low lying villages because of heavy
rains coming down from the mountains without green vegetations to absorb rainfall. Even though here is an
ongoing reforestation and aforestation in Laiban, a project of Environmental Studies Institute and
the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, their benefits are negated
by deforestation and other environmental issues.
After the almost hour motorcycle ride, we arrived at the village stopping by to greet the village chief,
a woman in her fifties. The barangay
(village) center was very clean and orderly. Some of the parents were already waiting to submit their children's scholarship application.
We were told there were about 20 applicants. Tonet took us to their house, where a simple
breakfast was prepared and served by his wife. Afterwards, we headed back to the village
center and started the screening of the scholars. It was a wonderful experience to interview
the youth individually about their application.
One of them left an impression on me.
She was only eleven years old, but quite clear of her direction in
life. She was very different from all
the others, she seemed very sure of herself.
We decided to give all the applicants a chance to scholarship this year,
but next year, only top three will be chosen based from their grades. The interview lasted until three o’clock
in the afternoon and then went back to Tonet’s house and ate lunch. Some of the village friends prepared some
freshly picked vegetables and fruits to take back to the city. Tonet plucked some green Indian mangoes too! Soon,
it was time for us to go home, the sky was very dark and we had a light rain
shower. By the time, we traveled back uphill from the village to the highway, the sun came out. It was a long and grueling day but I felt deep joy reflecting on the accounts of what happened today.
[1]
Slash
and burn agriculture is the process of cutting down the vegetation in a
particular plot of land, setting fire to the remaining foliage, and using the
ashes to provide nutrients to the soil for use of planting food crops. The
cleared area following slash and burn, also known as swidden, is used for a
relatively short period of time, and then left alone for a longer period of
time so that vegetation can grow again. For this reason, this type of
agriculture is also known as shifting cultivation. http://geography.about.com/od/urbaneconomicgeography/a/slashburn.htm
accessed May 26, 2014)
