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| ==[[Tawi-Tawi News]]== | | ==[[Tawi-Tawi News]]== |
| '''A river once ran through it''' | | '''Tawi-Tawi Advocates Rubber Tree Cultivation''' |
| *Source: http://opinion.inquirer.net/23413/a-river-once-ran-through-it | | *Source: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/352112/tawitawi-advocates-rubber-tree-cultivation |
| *1:32 am | Monday, February 20th, 2012 | | *February 21, 2012, 5:33pm |
| :by Noralyn Mustafa | | :by NONOY E. LACSON |
| Philippine Daily Inquirer
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| Finally, After 16 years, Navy Ensign Philip Pestaño will get justice. Sixteen years is a long time for the government to verify something that we in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi already knew right after news of Pestano’s murder broke out. The Senate and the United Nations found out the truth about the murder only after finishing their own investigations, but their findings amounted to nothing under the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and it had to take a new ombudsman, Conchita Carpio-Morales, an appointee of President Aquino, to right something heartrending and unjust.
| | BONGAO, Tawi-Tawi, Philippines – The provincial government of Tawi-Tawi is advocating a massive planting of rubber trees as an alternative source of income for the farmers in the province. |
| The murder of the young Navy officer unmasked the military, political and bureaucratic connivance responsible for the environmental degradation in the South, particularly the destruction of its forests—yes, it was a conspiracy too powerful that nobody foolish enough dared to expose it. For aside from being used for gunrunning and carrying prohibited drugs, Navy ships were said to transport illegal logs—precious Philippine hardwood from the virgin forests of the southern islands.
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| But this is only part of a most dreadful and very uncomfortable truth: Sulu and even Tawi-Tawi—with what used to be their lush forests of hardwood and fruit trees, precious medicinal plants and herbs—will soon be erased from the face of the earth due to the merciless greed of the very people mandated to protect them.
| | Tawi-Tawi Governor Sadikul Sahali made the call during the distribution of farm equipment and agri-fishery inputs Monday led by top officials of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DAF-ARMM) in this capital town. |
| I know of a house in Jolo built almost entirely with lumber from ilang-ilang trees.
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| Somebody who calls himself “Eryneon Wave” on our Facebook page has taken it upon himself to update us on what’s happening in Jolo by regularly posting pictures that speak louder than words. The more recent photos are, in his usual dry humor, captioned “waterways used as streets.” These were streets that those of us who grew up in Jolo never could imagine, not even in our worst nightmares, would someday get flooded.
| | Sahali said the provincial government is ready to allocate a substantial land area for a rubber nursery in the province where farmers can avail of rubber seedlings for planting. |
| “Any solutions?” Eryneon pleaded almost in desperation, because the picture showed only the most recent of a series of floods that hit the town of Jolo, the worst of which lasted for days and at peak reached eight to 10 feet high.
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| If solutions are to be found, one does not have to be a rocket scientist—as young people like to say—to pinpoint what needs to be done, although finding solutions to the problem and actually implementing them are two entirely different things.
| | For his part, DAF-ARMM Secretary Sangkula Tindick vowed to help the province in the propagation of rubber trees, as he disclosed that the ARMM had recently established a 10-hectare rubber nursery project at the Sta. Clara Breeding Station in Lamitan City, Basilan. |
| Solving the problem of flooding in Jolo is not that difficult, for the solutions are very obvious in the problem itself: informal settlers building their dwellings on waterways, a poor garbage disposal system especially for non-biodegradables and a host of other problems common to almost all areas that now get flooded with every typhoon.
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| Yet a closer look will reveal a more complex tangle of factors that led to this present state, the most daunting of which are the powerful forces that have contributed to what can now be called a certified environmental disaster.
| | Tindick said the nursery in Lamitan – the first of its kind in the ARMM, is expected to produce seven various clones of rubber seedlings for use of the rubber farmers or growers. |
| Worst of all, this has been going on for decades and you cannot implement quick fixes to a problem that has taken a life of its own.
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| The decades-long peace and order problem in Jolo forced many from the countryside to evacuate to the town whose land area is too small to accommodate that kind of instant population explosion. These evacuees had to look for available spaces on which to build their houses—some of them with enough means to build permanent ones, believing (and encouraged by political patrons) that they could not be driven away from where they have constructed permanent structures.
| | Sahali said the fertile land and suitable climate in the province will make rubber planting viable in the area, like coconut and various fruit trees. |
| There used to be a river that ran through the town of Jolo, its waters coming from historical Bud Dahu. Homegrown researchers say that the river gave the town its name.
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| If one were to trace the scant material evidence remaining, it is not farfetched that this claim may be true. Beside the river is a road, said to have been built by the early Chinese traders. The road starts from the docking area of a wharf that the Chinese also constructed, which to this day is known as Chinese Pier. Presumably, through this road, the Chinese brought their goods to the river.
| | He said that out of the three agricultural products, rubber tree is the best alternative for the farmers to cultivate because of its demand and prevailing prices in the local and world market. |
| Think of that scene in the movie “Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon?” where pig-tailed Chinese helped Kulas, the main protagonist, to get to Manila on their banca filled with goods sailing down the Pasig, and you will have the picture.
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| Ganoon din noon in this river. Ngayon, toilets have been built over it and garbage, mostly plastic, clog its flow. Its water is dark and murky, and just its stench can kill whatever life remains there.
| | As this developed, he urged farmers in the province to propagate rubber trees in order for them to have a higher income. |
| In my childhood, a certain Mr. Viray, the owner of the lone bus company in town (which was all that we needed), operated a thriving fishpond with water diverted from this river.
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| There used to be a pond, whose water came from the same spring in the same mountain, where the river drew its water. It was so clear that the community used to drink from it; there were boulders around it and a clump of slim bamboos at its edge.
| | “Rubber tree is one of the best agricultural products that farmers can plant in the province since it can give them higher yields due to the prevailing prices it has in the national and international markets,” he explained. |
| I used to go and bathe in the pond when it was dark, hoping to catch a glimpse of the water fairy that the elders said guarded it. The informal settlers have covered its source of water with cement.
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| The same is true with the other source of the town’s water system—Bud Tumantangis, a source of pure spring water. The swimmers have long gone. The swimming pool is now almost a cesspool.
| | He said that rubber latex could be collected every other day from an incised rubber tree, and can be sold at P75 per kilo, while the semi-processed or cooked rubber latex can be sold at P150 per kilo at the local market. |
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| | Sahali said that a rubber farmer can collect as much as 500 kilos of latex per hectare of rubber trees per month, which can easily provide the farmers with an income of P37,500 per month – based on the prevailing market prices. |
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| | It was learned that Tawi-Tawi has 107 islands and islets, with a combined land area of 1,197 square kilometers, and is blessed with generally good climate, with the months of August to November as rainy season. |
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| | Tindick also agreed with Sahali’s claim that there is a need to transform the unproductive and idle lands of the province into agri-business ventures to help generate job opportunities for the local residents. |
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| | It was also learned that majority of farmers in the province are presently engaged in the planting of cassava and fruit-bearing trees, like mango, durian, rambutan, mangosteen, and also into seaweed farming. |
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| ==[[:Category:Tawi-Tawi, Philippines Photo Gallery|Tawi-Tawi, Philippines Photo Gallery]]== | | ==[[:Category:Tawi-Tawi, Philippines Photo Gallery|Tawi-Tawi, Philippines Photo Gallery]]== |