BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-CAR ) started prohibiting the planting of trees within 60 meters from the center of roads in the different parts of the region to ensure the smooth implementation of future road expansion projects that will be implemented by the agency and prevent unnecessary problems that will delay the completion of public works projects.
DPWH-CAR regional director Engr. Tiburcio Canlas said that the agency does not want to encounter the difficulty of requesting for the issuance of cutting permits for trees that have grown within the 60-meter road-right-of-way of national roads causing serious delays in the implementation of numerous public works projects inside and outside the region over the past several years that is why planting of trees along roads will now be prohibited.
He claimed that trees should be planted in parks, forest reservations and other public lands outside the 60-meter prescribed road-right-of-way of national roads so that future expansion projects along the said roads will not be unnecessarily hampered by the delayed issuance of tree cutting permits by the concerned government agencies.
“We will no longer allow the planting of trees along roads, especially within the prescribed road-right-of-way of national roads, so that we will not be accused of cutting trees once we will introduce expansion projects along national roads in the future,” Canlas stressed.
The DPWH-CAR official recognized the importance of trees in erosion control, beatification and the production of oxygen and absorption of carbon dioxide but the trees must be planted in the appropriate places to prevent problems that may arise once concerned government agencies start developing certain areas that need the cutting of the trees that have already grown.
According to him, it has been unfortunate that the DPWH-CAR and its district offices had to resort to the cutting of trees planted within the road-right-of-way of various national roads in the region to pave the way for the implementation of their programmed widening projects that were funded from the budget of the previous years that caused uproar among environmentalists.
Ironically, he admitted that some of the trees affected by the ongoing widening of national roads in the different parts of the region were those trees that were planted by concerned stakeholders and government officials and employees who actively participated in the annual conduct of the Unity Gong Relay, one of the major activities lined up by the Regional Development Council (RDC) to celebrate the founding anniversary of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
He urged local governments and concerned government agencies to closely coordinate with the DPWH-CAR and the different district offices in the region when conducting tree planting activities along national roads to ascertain the areas where their personnel and volunteers can plant trees and thus prevent the unnecessary cutting of the planted trees when the agency will implement their own expansion projects along said roads regionwide.
By HENT