Inhuman Rights

A study conducted years ago at Mt. Magdiwata Watershed in Agusan del Sur showed how trees can contribute to the improvement of surface water discharges, especially after a reforestation program. The improvement has recorded a 2-liter per second increase that, aside from containing more water, it also holds more soil than the average agricultural crop. And so the amount of water that runs off or recharges within a span of time is as fresh as any distilled water available at our disposal, a clear indication that trees or even the forests in general provide pure and clean water.

Far from any contamination caused by careless livestock measures or even unmitigated human activities potentially detrimental to the environment, forests are suitable land areas where recharges of water can actually take its full swing. Operating under an intricate system of discharging, these forests can collect a glorious amount of rainwater to feed the aquifers below somehow. These trees can absorb large quantities of water and, in turn, minimize the prospect of suffering under a heavy flow of flood. Thus, we need to plant more trees now, not just in those brown balding forests, but more so in our own backyard.

While it may be commendable to start planting your own set of trees now, the amount of work of even planting one, since trees don’t grow overnight, is still very much a long overhaul. With the unrelenting decapitation of trees in our diminishing forests, a single seed planted today may be in danger of being run over by a wayward log 50 kilometers per hour as that impending flood flattens every living thing on its path. The mockery behind it is that while we may be excited over our participation in a “plant a tree” program, some of those who are tasked of safekeeping these same trees are also very busy with their own “flat a tree” line up.

It is almost impossible to remain unhampered after hearing reports that some of our DENR officials are allegedly escorting an illegal logging transaction. If that is the kind of discharging the forest should take, it clearly doesn’t require a single seed to rehash itself, just as it needs P50,000 for a bribe to discharge pieces of sawn Lauans forcefully and distribute the profit to those who want to partake of it. The money bribe casually offered first to the authorities, particularly the PNP, sounds more like a heavy rain that is supposed to cool the early morning trees of these illegal loggers. In the same way that forest trees can absorb large amounts of water, these DENR dictocrats are already absorbing pure and clean six figures of it and counting.

This is entirely a different stroke of reforestation. A kind that soaks up the mouths of every agency with a P50, 000 bribe for it to maintain the amount of rain that befalls every logging concession. And we can easily see the effects of this growing bribery inundating every precarious river loaded with errant logs in the countryside, when a heavy rain pours unrelentingly within a furious stretch of time. Even the Rotarians themselves, with their flair of organizing tree planting activities, would find themselves assaulted by the very claims of these illegal loggers, who can easily discharge a "rainfall" for their illegal acts, and ultimately keep everyone’s mouth shut.

We need to conduct a study again, or better still start planting a tree now. This time, let us make the possible damage of absorbing too much “rainfall” surface without getting ourselves soaked in the rain. It taxes every bit of sanity to consider how far this bribing goes and remain unnerved over our receding hair of wild forests. It is almost inhuman to even count the physical claims if such practices would go unhindered, and experience the destruction of homes, the devastation of crops and the dehumanization of lives, human or otherwise. That flood will not only increase 2 liters per second, it can also obliterate 2 lives per second as well.