City Solons want tree-cutting stopped, seek help from palace

July 4, 2020 Metro BLISTT

The city council, through a resolution, has reached out to the office of President Rodrigo Duterte to request for an issuance of an executive order mandating a moratorium on tree-cutting activities and on the construction of new commercial buildings in the City of Baguio. Councilor Levy Lloyd Orcales, main author of the resolution, said the moratorium would give the city its much needed breather in order to recover and regain its forest covers.
This would also allow the city government to review its policies governing building constructions, he added. Orcales bemoaned the felling of trees in the city stressing economic development is welcome but not to the extent of depriving the people of clean and fresh air.
“We do not want our children and our children’s children to not be able to breathe clean and fresh air and deprive them of the future they deserve. Let us together save the future of our youth while
we still can,” Orcales remarked.
“These trees symbolize the very character of our city, and we treat them as heritage that must be preserved. But with continuous cutting of trees, it would soon bring us to a situation where we no longer have trees for our future generations to live in,” he continued.
The Sangguniang Kabataan Federation president proclaimed the youth of Baguio, along with all of its people, denounces the “blatant disregard” for the value of trees. Orcales said that many private companies managed to cut down numerous trees in the city for the construction of commercial buildings. He emphasized the need to put a premium on sustainable development. He asserted it is a soft approach for economic and social development that does not put too much strain on the environment.
A paradigm shift is needed to ensure the protection of the environment against the excesses of human development, he added. Orcales called for solidarity in revoking the view that man stands over and above the environment. He also denied the idea that the environment is solely for human use underscoring that man’s needs and commercial gains should not be considered more important than anything else.
In the resolution, Orcales cited the initial report from a team commissioned to study the city’s urban capacity which indicates that the remaining number of trees in the city is insufficient for its more than 350,000 residents and that the city’s daytime population mounts to 700,000 with the influx of out-of-town workers, students, businessmen, and tourists. The study also revealed that the city’s built-up areas “had encroached into its forest covers leaving only about 2.5 million trees standing within the city.”
Moreover, the resolution recalled that, in October 2019, Malacañang approved “in principle” Baguio City’s proposed one-year moratoria on new commercial buildings and on cutting of trees. The proposed executive order providing for the guidelines in the implementation of the moratoria was submitted to the office of the president through the DENR and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and only the formal communication is being awaited for its actual and full implementation.
The DENR and the DILG will be furnished copies of the resolution after it is signed by the city mayor for their information and appropriate action.
Jordan G. Habbiling/ABN