Bill on Oro log ban lacking

Bencyrus Ellorin .

ON its face, House Bill 4798 or “An act imposing a logging ban in Cagayan de Oro City” authored by 2nd district Rep. Maximo Rodriguez Jr., looks good.

One would think, finally, an Cagayan de Oro congressman addressed the call of environmentalists as far as 27 years ago, when the Task Force Macajalar staged its first anti-logging human barricade in the Manresa area, now the uptown of the city.

A reading of the bill however would show gross insufficiency. Consider these:

1. There is no more large scale logging in Cagayan de Oro. The last big one, Vicmar, had its timber license agreement to log in the Tignapoloan-Besigan areas canceled in 2017.
2. What is there to log when we have lost our forests?

As they say, the best time to plant trees was 20 years ago; the next best time was yesterday.

The Rodriguez bill, if it has to be relevant, needs major overhauling to expand its scope. There are enough research materials and knowledge on the nature of the Cagayan de Oro watershed to make the proposed measure relevant.

The bill, for starters, limits its scope to the political boundaries of the city. In that case, it would only cover the Monigue subwatershed of the Cagayan River in the Dansolihon-Bayanga areas. This subwatershed is the smallest of the eight subwatersheds of the Cagayan River which covers a huge expanse of mountain landscape at 137,972.14 hectares. This is almost thrice the size of the city. Monigue subwatershed only covers four percent of the Cagayan de Oro river watershed.

The rest of the subwatersheds are either in the Kitanglad and Kalatungan mountains, the 2nd and 3rd highest mountains in Mindanao. Bubunawas, Tagiti, Tumalaong and Kalawaig subwatersheds are in the Kitanglad, in the town of Baungon, Bukidnon.

The other subwatersheds from Kalatungan are Pigcotin, Picalin and Batang, the biggest which already straddling Bukidnon and Lanao del Sur.

The billions of liters of water that inundated Cagayan de Oro when “Sendong” struck on Dec. 16-17, 2011 came from Kitanglad and Kalatungan. While Pagasa’s rain gauge in Lumbia only recorded 181 mm, the rain gauge of a private compang in Capehan, Baungon, at the foot of Kitanglad, registered 475 mm.

A reconstruction of the floodwater source by watershed and forest landscape expert Raoul Geollegue indicates that water at the Bubunawan River was elevated by around three meters; in Tagiti by around four meters; and highest in Batang at the foot of Kalatungan in Talakag by around six meters.

In a position paper by the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office, dated July 31, 2018, it acknowledged the need to legislate watershed protection and rehabilitation of the Cagayan de Oro watershed. But limiting its scope, as the bill at its current form stands would have minimal impact, said Engr. Armen Cuenca, Clenro chief.

I hope the good congressman listens.