Batanes OIC, Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer Marcelo G. Bumidang urges the contractual and job order personnel to listen attentively to the lectures during the Orientation on DENR and Office Policies held at the PENR Office on Feb. 5, this year. Initiated by the Administrative and Finance Section under the Management Services Division, the orientation focused on DENR history, mandate, mission, vision, core values; priority programs; and office policies. To encourage mastery and internalization of the DENR core values, Trixie Elaine G. Ponce was given a cash incentive for satisfactorily elaborating on these core values during the orientation. #
About 300 residents, local government officials and government personnel participated in the estero cleanup spearheaded by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the island province of Batanes on July 16, this year.
Marking the launch of the Adopt-An-Estero project of the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO), the cleanup yielded more or less 75 kilograms of solid waste.
The project is implemented along the Padangan Creek and San Antonio Creek, both in Basco, the capital town of Batanes.
The two creeks are along the urban barangays of Basco. Padangan Creek covers Barangays Kayvaluganan, Kayhuvokan and Kaychanarianan with a total households of 1,648 while San Antonio Creek in Barangay San Antonio covers 473 households.
Basco town is the entry point of tourists and the site of most of the hotels and other lodging houses in the province. The tourists increase the waste generated by the residents.
“The creeks are regular cleanup sites by environmental stakeholders during special events. However, their cleanliness is not maintained, thus, the need for their adoption, PENRO management services chief Victoria Baliuag, project proponent,” said.
Baliuag added that cleanup of the creeks with aggregate length of 2,610 meters was timely as Typhoon Falcon hit the island province a day after the activity. The typhoon filled the intermittent creeks with water that should have brought the solid waste to the West Philippine Sea which provides abundant supply of fishes and other coastal resources for the Ivatans.
To ensure sustainability of collaborative efforts on clean water and solid waste management, the PENRO will initiate a signing of memorandum of agreement between and among the DENR and the adoptor. Capacity-building and weekly monitoring on the enforcement of solid waste management ordinances by the barangay officials will also be conducted. #
The Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) in Bago City recently spearheaded the 7th cleanup of Sum-ag River in Brgy. Sum-ag, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental.
One hundred eighty five (185) participants from the Philippine Coast Guard, Sum-ag Elementary School, PCG Auxiliary, City Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management Council(CFARMC) Guardians Emigrant and barangay officials and residents joined the Sum-ag River Cleanup and gathered a total of forty three (43) sacks of assorted garbages.
DENR 6 Regional Executive Director Francisco E. Milla, Jr. thanked stakeholders for helping cleanup Sum-Ag River. He also appealed to the community to observe proper solid waste disposal and management.
“The Environment Department is very thankful for your active support in helping to improve the quality of our water bodies. Whatever we do to our environment will eventually affect us in many ways”, he said.
RED Milla also underscored that the conductof cleanup drive will need the involvement of community for them to realize the need tO reverse the worsening condition of rivers and other water bodies.
Clean Water is one of the ten (10) priority programs of DENR Secretary Roy A. Cimatu which aims to improve water quality of priority rivers and other critical water bodies including lakes and bays through continuous massive clean up, monitoring of industries and rehabilitation of esteros and rivers./DENR-CENROBago
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)ZamboangaPensinsulathru the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) of Zamboanga City, in coordination with the office of the Register of Deeds and local government unit officials awarded186 land titles to qualified recipients from Barangay Tolosa under the HandogTitulo Program.
The awarding ceremony, held on September 18, 2019 in Zamboanga City, was attended by Zamboanga City Vice Mayor Atty. Rommel Agan (for Mayor BengClimaco), Register of Deeds Jayvee Baginda, Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer (PENRO) Dante Oporto, CENROfficerPilaritoMontebon, City Assesor Erwin Bernardo, Tolosa Barangay Chairman Joseph S. Lazareno, beneficiaries and residents of the said barangay.
Vice Mayor Agan congratulated the beneficiares and told them to take care of their land titles as this can be used as collaterals in times of need.
" Puedeyaustedesdurmienbuenamentetodo el noche y hindena man lingasa cay talyiya con ustedes el titulo del magatierradondeustedes ta queda o siembra," (You can now sleep soundly everynight and not worry anymore because you are now in possession of land titles for the lands where you stay or plant.) said Vice Mayor Agan.
CENRO Montebon, on the other hand, invited others who still do not have land titles to visit his office to apply as the office provides free land survey services to qualified applicants.
"Please feel free to visit our office for your titling needs or concerns,"CENRO Montebon said.
The beneficiaries were all happy and contented for finally receiving the titles to their lands.
A total of 186 land titles were awarded consisting of 90 Agricultural Patents and 96 Residential Free Patents.
The conduct of the HandogTitulo Program is in line with the mandate of the DENR to administer, manage and dispose public lands in favor of qualified beneficiaries pursuant to Act No. 218 dated September 2, 1901 entitled "An Act Creating the Bureau of Public Lands." It was also held in celebration of the 118th anniversary of the Land Management Bureau. (rt)
Apart from helping combat the effects of climate change, bamboo can also help increase the country’s forest cover, said Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu in his Keynote Speech during the Opening Ceremonies of the 1st ASEAN Bamboo Congress held at the Iloilo Convention Center in Iloilo City on August 12 to 16, 2019.
Bamboo, touted as the Earth’s tallest grass, has great potentials to pull the countryoff its environmental woes, especially as a strategic tool for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
“Bamboo has been proven to adapt well to the changing climatic conditions of the world and has made significant contributions to mitigate the causes and effects of climate change,” said Cimatu.
The environment chief said increasing bamboo plantations and making Panay Island the Bamboo Capital of the Philippines in terms of manufacturing engineered bamboo will ease the pressure on the country’s forests. He added that engineered bamboos are as sturdy as the lumber products.
Among the South East Asian nations, the Philippines ranked lowest in terms of forest cover, with an estimated 7,014,155.71 hectares or 23.38 percent of its official total land area of 30 million hectares covered with trees.
“Bamboo reduces the need for timber resources, enhances carbon sequestration, biodiversity preservation and low-cost rehabilitation of degraded lands. We envision producing engineered bamboo products as a substitute for actual lumber requirement of our country, instead of cutting trees from our forests,” Cimatu said.
Engineered bamboo, he said, will slowly increase the forest cover of the Philippines for the next several years or decades.
“We have already conducted surveys as to the available areas which are potential for bamboo plantations in the region. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Region 6 has also allotted a budget of Php 10 million for this year to implement the plan,”said Regional Executive Director Francisco E. Milla, Jr.
The 2019 Php 10-M budget targets to prioritize the planting of bamboos under the Enhanced National Greening Program (ENGP) implemented by the DENR. The budget includes the expenditures for establishing three nurseries for priority provinces namely: Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Capiz; production of 100,000 bamboo seedlings; and capacity building for priority stakeholders and DENR personnel.
The bamboo industry has been considered a “sunset industry” but with the government’s plan to revive it, hopes are high that it will again prosper.
