Special Christmas trees give hope to poor Samareños
CATBALOGAN, SAMAR — These special kind of trees have bore fruits of hope to hundreds of poor families in Samar province.
These special trees — actually fully adorned Christmas trees – are silently auctioned off, together with some art works and other items, during the annual Festival of Trees to raise funds that would finance poverty alleviation and environmental programs for the “neediest” among the Filipinos.
Started in 1995, the Festival of Trees (FOT), a fund-raising event being hosted by the Makati Garden Club and the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), is attended by prominent and charitable members of society in Metro Manila
FOT’s first beneficiary was Samar, whose Maqueda Bay was already depleted of marine resources.
“Our concern (then) was the degraded coastal and upland resources…(because) majority of the people (in Samar) were dependent on the coastal resources of Maqueda Bay,” says Cecelia Ang, PBSP-Samar program coordinator.
Ang added that much of the funds coming from FOT had initially been devoted to the establishment of marine protected areas in Barangay Cabugawan, a village in Buri Island in Catbalogan, the capital town of Samar.
Among the projects in Cabugawan were mangrove reforestation, marine sanctuary maintenance, and cutflower production that provided extra income to residents.
“These mangrove plants do not only serve as a breeding area for fish but also protect our village from big waves during a bad weather,” says 62-year-old Rosita Niedo, pointing to the mangrove plantation fronting Barangay Cabugawan.
Niedo, a member of the Cabugawan multi-purpose cooperative, says many members of their cooperative have availed of livelihood and environmental protection projects of the PBSP.
Earlier, residents of Barangay Cabugawan had been living dangerously particularly during typhoons because the mangroves that protect the village had almost been used up as firewood by the locals.
Fish catch had also drastically diminished because marine resources in Maqueda Bay had been depleted due to over fishing and illegal fishing. Rampant cutting of tree and erosion also aggravated the situation in the uplands.
But things started to change in Barangay Cabugawan when the PBSP, with funding support from the FOT, began implementing projects including community organizing, environmental awareness and livelihood skills trainings.
Ang says that it was not easy at the start of program implementation because most of the farmers and fishers were hesitant to accept the poverty alleviating technologies they introduced. “They had this wait-and-see attitude,” she recalls.
However, the people eventually changed due to the trainings they attended and to the good things that happened to those who readily accepted the new technologies, Ang says.
The PBSP, a private and non-profit foundation dedicated to promoting business sector commitment to social development, spearheaded the implementation of the FOT-funded Catbalogan Area Resource Management Program (CARMP).
According to Ang, the initial program beneficiaries were Barangays Cabugawan, New Mahayag, Old Mahayag, Iguid, San Roque-Silanga, Pupua and Iguid.
Later, PBSP’s area was expanded to Barangay Jia-an in Jiabong town, Barangay Majacob in Tarangnan town and Barangays San Vicente, Lucerdone, Pangdan and Ibol in Catbalogan.
In 2003, however, FOT’s provision of funding for Samar projects was ended. The FOT annual activity went on but the proceeds were allocated to the less fortunate in other areas in the country.
Fortunately for the PBSP beneficiaries in Samar, the projects started with FOT-funding were continued by a Belgian non-government organization that now provides the funds.
Ang admits that without the projects funded by the FOT and the barangay network already organized, they could not have availed of new funding from the Belgian NGO.
She says that since they started their projects in Samar in late 1990s, the number of PBSP beneficiaries has already reached 3,629.
She proudly adds that based on a survey conducted last August, some 1,044 beneficiaries who have availed of livelihood projects have shown an increase in income from P2,500 to P3,000 a month at the start of the program to P6,000 to P9,000 per month this year.
Among those who availed of livelihood assistance have either ventured into cutflower production, fish drying, aquaculture, planting of rice, corn, root crops or vegetable, or raising swine, livestock or poultry.
Other beneficiaries had engaged in mangrove plantation, reforestation and agro-forestry projects.
To support these projects, the PBSP maintains a multi-species hatchery, floating fish cages, a seed bank, a vermicomposting production area, a farm demonstration area and an upland technology farm.
The one-hectare PBSP hatchery, located in a PBSP-owned, 5-hectare land at the coastal village of Old Mahayag, has about a dozen concrete tanks. It also has several floating fish cages at sea where breeders such as milkfish, grouper, snapper, seabass, sinagid, pompano and others are raised, says Neil Pancipanci, PBSP-Samar technical officer.
He says the hatchery is now the source of cheap fries of their beneficiaries and that they continuously provide technical assistance to beneficiaries.
In New Mahayag, the PBSP has its office and dormitory buildings inside a 5-hectare land at the side of the national highway, known as the “farm.”
The farm has tall trees surrounding it. It has a nursery for several kinds of trees including mankono, almaciga, guisok and other indigenous trees. It also has roses, orchids and bromeliads, among other flowering plants.
“We also have a gene bank with more than 400 species,” says Rodolfo Macalalag, PBSP-Samar technical officer in-charge of the nursery.
The gene bank is a one-hectare area inside the farm which was established in partnership with the Army’s 13th Infantry Battalion based near the area, he says.
All these were realized because of the FOT-funded projects in Samar, Ang emphasizes.
She also hopes the FOT would once again assist the poor people of Samar especially now that the PBSP-Samar headed by operations officer Leo Hilado Jr. has embarked on a new 5-year poverty reduction program in the province.
ng says that under the new program, the PBSP aims to reach out to all the 14 municipalities in the Maqueda Bay area, with the focus of the program on maternal and child health, education, livelihood and the environment.
“After poverty alleviation, we’re now on poverty reduction,” stresses Ang. (VEN LABRO)
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