In the spate of reports of “tree crimes” reported in Cebu since last year, a disturbing pattern has emerged.
Living trees, viewed as mere obstructions, are uprooted or chopped down to speed up their replacement with wider concrete roads.
The authors, in a hurry to finish infrastructure targets, don’t bother to seek permission, or if they do, pay lip service to specific guidelines for transplanting them to other sites that could benefit from the greenery and shade.
The alarming coincidence is that these are government projects, and the actors on both sides of the fence are government agencies.
Set aside for the moment the loss of heritage in a balete tree, more than 60 years old, a rarity on M. Velez Street that was torn out of the urban landscape and left to die a dried out stump in a reclaimed area of Cebu City.
Or the series of 80 fire trees that disappeared overnight from the center of Osmeña Road in March after Earth Day, a feat which the road contractor continues to disown.
Or the stretch of acacias that no longer welcome visitors with a lush canopy along the highway of Perrelos, Carcar to San Fernando in south Cebu.
Why is the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and its contractors so swift to bulldoze with impunity planted trees on public roads, even those owned by the city government?
With funds downloaded from the national government to get projects going, the DPWH is in a hurry to spend.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), like a warden roused from a nap, invokes violations of permits for earth-balling, the Forestry Reform Code or other laws that prohibit wanton tree-cutting or illegal logging, but sadly AFTER the deed is done.
Here see a grand display of government unable to get its act together.
Not once, but twice this year, the DENR 7 has issued stoppage orders against the DPWH from further cutting down trees, but the damage is already far done.
A criminal case is pending against the contractor, WT Construction suspected of ripping out the fire trees.
The latest case of this disconnect is in Argao, hometown of Gov. Hilario Davide III.
Argao Mayor Edsel Galeos, bent on opening a mountain road, has gone to court to stop the DENR from implementing a cease-and-desist order for the town to stop cutting trees in the project site.
At least 374 trees in a reforestation site are already gone.
What’s surprising is who prepared the petition: Provincial Legal Officer Orvi Ortgega, which means the governor gave his blessing to a lawsuit against key officials of the DENR, including Secretary Ramon Paje.
It’s an awkward case, to say the least.
What’s a Cebu governor doing suing a Cabinet secretary over the further loss of trees?
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Cebudailynews. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.
