Trees along the south Cebu highway should be pruned, not cut down, said a tree pathologist, whose third-party opinion was supposed to end a stalemate between government and environment advocates.
But the issue has not died down for former congressman Eduardo Gullas, who considers the road widening of the Naga-Carcar highway his legacy.
Gullas told reporters yesterday he would fly to Manila next week to persuade Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson to resume work on the South Cebu road, a project, Gullas has been pushing since 1992.
“With all due respect to Dr. Militante, let us not lose sight of the real, genuine, core issues,” Gullas told a press conference.
“The real issue is not strengthening or weakening or even cutting the trees.”
Gullas said further delay in tree cutting would compromise the road development in south Cebu because the P1 billion road project “is the only arterial road in south Cebu” to assure progress.
INVESTMENT
“The real issue is how we deal and attract investors to go to south and west Cebu, to afford job opportunities to jobless Cebuanos in the different towns and cities there,” he said.
In a previous letter to the editor in mid August, Gullas described this as “the project closest to my heart, one that I will do anything for”.
He lobbied to widen the Carcar-Naga national road from a two-lane to a four-lane highways in his first term in Congress in 1992, and continues to follow up its completion through his grandson, Congressman Gerald Anthony, who took over the 1st district seat.
Last Friday, Dr. Ernesto Militante, a a retired professor of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, gave his assessment of the health of roadside Acacia trees in Naga and San Fernando, in an exit conference at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) 7.
Militante said the trees need “immediate” pruning so that branches leaning towards the road and those with “imbalanced top heavy crowns” don’t pose a safety hazard.
Militante, who was tapped by the Movement for a Livable Cebu (MLC) and the DENR 7 as a shared expert, also said the concrete surrounding the base of trees must be removed at a distance of 30 centimeters from the trunk to avoid “strangling” the trees.
Government foresters earlier said that 88 trees along the south highway in Naga, San Fernando and Carcar were “diseased or defective”, prompting DPWH crews to use chainsaws to topple four century-old Acacias in Naga before Secretary Singson stopped the work in August.
Singson withdrew the road widening project in Naga City and instructed his director in Cebu to find alternatives to avoid destroying the trees following a lobby by civil society groups in Cebu and Manila.
Gullas, however, resumed his efforts to get the highway project going again.
He said this was an important “gateway for progress” in the south, so that development can spread beyond Metro Cebu.
“The Cebu South Road is the only arterial highway to south Cebu. It does not serve Cebuanos only but also Boholanos, and Negrenses both from Oriental and Occidental,” said Gullas.
It took 11 years for the earlier phase of widening two lanes to four lanes from Talisay City to Naga City on Gullas’ initiative which saw completion in 2003
The second half of the project would widen a 16.8 kilometer stretch from Tinaan in Naga City to barangay Awayan in Carcar City.
SINGSON’S SUPPORT
Gullas said he will fly to Manila next week to convince Secretary Singson to recall his order suspending work and remind the Cabinet official that he was the one who approved the road widening project in 2013.
He recalled a 2013 budget hearing of the Committee on Appropriations where Gullas asked for funding for the road project from Singson since he believed the DPWH would have savings by December.
Singson replied that if any other congressman was willing to give his or her savings for the project, it was good as approved.
“By that statement alone, giapprove na niya ang project for widening,” said Gullas.
In that committee hearing, it was Cebu City south district Rep. Tomas Osmeña who surprised Gullas by waiving his share of P400 million “savings” in favor of the south Cebu highway.
The amount that was no longer being used for two flyovers at P200 million each in Cebu city, where the MLC waged an anti-flyover campaign.
The P1.025 billion South Cebu highway project includes the rehabilitation of six bridges in the area and setting of 37 box culverts on these bridges.
Gullas yesterday said the road project would not affect five heritage houses in Carcar city because there would be a bypass road that will traverse through a mountain and spare the century-old edifices.
Gullas said he managed to secure P700 million for the project from the national government since 2011.
Gullas said his grandson Gerald Anthony Gullas of Cebu’s 1st district would secure the balance of about P300 million.
POLITICAL INTERFERENCE
In his letter to the editor about the tree controversy, Gullas wrote that the “most serious roadblock” to the project was the presence of century-old Acacia trees, “which need to be protected and preserved.”
“My stand from the very beginning has always been that the decision should rest on two government departments – DENR and DPWH. That’s their mandate. Politicians better refrain from interfering.”
At the time, he urged the two Cabinet secretaries to “consider consulting a third party who is an authority on diseased trees, to do an independent investigation on the remaining diseased trees in Naga City, 41 in San Fernando and four in Carcar City.”
Gullas said students, faculty and alumni of the family-owned University of the Visayas, would pledge to plant replacement Acacia trees on both side of the new four-lane road if DENR would supply the planting materials.
In a statement after Friday’s briefing by Dr. Militante, the MLC said the controversy over trees before was reduced to a choice of the need to “either save the trees or save lives. “But is there no other way? Can we not have both? Yes indeed, we can.”
After the exit conference at the DENR, parties talked about the possibility of planning an additional road “which allows keeping the trees and increasing access to the fast growing cities and municipalities of the Southern part of Cebu. “
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