By Jonathan L. Mayuga & Roger Pe
IT’S called the country’s last ecological frontier. From time to time, Palawan, an island-province in Luzon, is showcased because of its rich biodiversity, as well as natural wonders that are threatened by various human activities.
Much has been written about Palawan. A number of blogs have featured trips to its secluded hideaways, stunningly white, pristine beaches, and spectacular rain forests. Many have sang hosannas to its paradise-like havens. From the sublime to the cheesy, various travelogues have been penned about the Philippines’s “Last Frontier.”
And they keep on coming.
A global serial reality-television show has made Palawan as a backdrop, and Hollywood movie The Bourne Legacy made a stunning sequence of El Nido toward the latter part of the movie. YouTube has plenty of videos about Palawan in varying degrees of production quality—good, better and bad.
Every single visitor to the province has taken “selfies” about its famous landmarks or must have encountered any of these—Palawan Mynah, Green Parrot, cashew (in all its forms), Lamayo, Bear Cat, Armadillo, White Cockatoo, Pheasant Peacock, Coron and Calauit.
But the clueless has not probably heard of the insect-eating Pitcher plant or the bird of Ursula. They may have never been to Onuk Island, Punta Sebaring, the bowels of Mount Mantalinggahan, the inner sanctum of the Underground River, terrains of Cleopatra’s Needle, Malampaya Sound marine sanctuary, into the depths of Tubbataha, Pleistocene-age caves of Tabon, Fireflies tour of Iwahig River, desolately beautiful Cagayancillo Island, or the summit of Mount Victoria. The list is untiringly endless.
From north to south, the province is adventure spelled with a bold, capital “A” with plenty to spare.
You can’t possibly cover Palawan in a day or a week to fully grasp its uniqueness that is akin to Borneo. If you are a lover of that wonderful island beneath the Philippines’s largest province, you must love Palawan. After all, they were connected millions of years ago, and the similarities are very pronounced.
Topping all provinces
PALAWAN currently tops all provinces in the country in terms of forest cover, according to the 2013 Forestry Statistics report released by the Forest Management Bureau (FMB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Of its 1,489,626 total land area, 692,288 hectares are covered with forest.
Because of its thick forest cover, Palawan is known to host a diversified flora and fauna, including native birds that are unique or endemic to the Philippines.
The size of Palawan’s forest cover is almost twice that of Isabela province, which ranked No. 2 in the top 10 provinces in terms of forest cover area, with 378,272 hectares of the total land area of 904,026 hectares.
However, Palawan recently lost its title of having the most densely covered forest. It now ranked as No. 6 in the top 10 provinces with high-density forest cover, at 46.47 percent forest cover. Previous records show it has 53-percent forest cover.
Topping the list with high-density forest cover are Quirino, 67.48 percent; Apayao, 55.59 percent; Surigao del Sur, 49.82 percent; Nueva Vizcaya, 49.62 percent; and Lanao del Sur, 48.56 percent.
In earlier interviews, Director Ricardo Calderon of the DENR’s FMB said Palawan hosts the most diversified species of native trees in the country.
The country’s top forestry official said Palawan has the most number of commercially viable trees, including narra, which is the most sought-after tree species by commercial loggers.
Heritage sites
PALAWAN, the largest province in the Philippines, is a complex ecosystem that serves as refuge to more than a hundred marine and many other indigenous species of flora and fauna.
Conservation International describes it as the Philippines’s “last biodiversity frontier,” because it still retains more than 50 percent of its original forest cover and harbors vast stretches of old growth forests on its mountainous slopes.
It is home to two United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) World Heritage sites. These Unesco sites are the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, which includes the world’s longest navigable underground river; and the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, the spectacular, uninhabited coral-reef atolls with thousands of abundant manta rays, whale sharks, marine turtles, sharks and more than 400 species of fish.
Rapid urbanization, consequent increases in utilization and high migration rates, however, are creating tremendous pressure on its upland forest and coastal areas, resulting to encroachment into sensitive areas where resources are exploited in unsustainable and destructive ways.
Off-limits
SECRETARY Regina Paz L. Lopez of the DENR vowed to make Palawan “off-limits” to destructive development projects, underscoring its importance as the country’s last frontier.
Early this year, former Environment Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje declared Palawan to be off-limits to new coal projects, heeding the call of communities and other stakeholders to protect the country’s last frontier.
Lopez vowed to continue such policy, and said it will also be off-limits to new mining projects, as well.
An environmental advocate, Lopez in an interview said Palawan’s rich biodiversity should be protected against destructive development projects.
As the chief steward of the country’s environment and natural resources and alter-ego of President Duterte in the DENR, Lopez wants to turn Palawan into the No. 1 island-destination on the planet.
Lopez said she wants Palawan to use clean energy in the province, in lieu of coal-fired power plants, and stop projects that threaten its terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
Likewise, she said mining in Palawan will have to stop if it will adversely affect people and the environment.
Lopez said she is meeting with the officials of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) to discuss the Duterte administration’s mining policies.
“We are going to stop all destructive projects in Palawan. If the mining is destructive, we will stop it,” she said.
Several mining companies that operate in Palawan, such as Rio Tuba Nickel Mining Corp. (RTNMC) and its sister company, Coral Bay Nickel Corp. (CBNC), are currently operating in the town of Bataraza for decades.
The two companies boast of implementing environment-friendly mining of nickel and recently showcased progressive rehabilitation. The CBNC, for instance, showcased its 90-hectare Tailings Dam 1, about 20 hectares of which have been successfully converted into agro-forestry plantations and food production area, while the rest are now covered with grass and shrubs. Another area, a 25-hectare portion of mined-out area of RTNMC, is now covered with native trees, vegetable farm and a portion planted to high-value crops.
But Lopez said there is more to mining than rehabilitation. She earlier vowed to stop the operations of irresponsible mining companies that brought suffering to people and communities.
“Iyong mga ilog, iyong dagat at iyong kalusugan ng mga tao, importante [Palawan is very important and we will see to it that it will be protected],” she said.
Revisit laws
DIRECTOR Theresa Mundita S. Lim of the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), meanwhile, said for her part that the richness of Palawan in terms of flora and fauna has been recognized since the 1960s, when the entire province was proclaimed as a Game Refuge and Bird Sanctuary.
“This proclamation, and eventual boundary amendments, consequently placed Palawan or portions of Palawan as initial component of the National Integrated Protected Area System [Nipas],” she said.
Other laws and regulations have also been issued since, including Republic Act 7166, or the Strategic Environmental Plan (SEP) for Palawan Act, which aimed to strengthen protection of the remaining natural areas of Palawan.
“Although we appreciate the good intentions in the declaration of the entire province as a World Conservation Area, we should also take some time to review all the past issuances and layers of proclamations that have covered Palawan through the years and assess why the state of biodiversity in Palawan has turned out to become the way it is now, to even warrant another declaration for conservation,” she said.
“If it does get declared again, this time, then all of us, the various sectors across levels of governance, must have a concerted effort to make sure that it shall be implemented and operationalized in order to achieve what it seeks to achieve, for the benefit of the Palaweños and of the entire country,” she added.
Protected areas
THERE are several protected areas (PAs) in Palawan, including the world-famous Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park and the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, which have been declared as Unesco World Heritage Site.
In addition, the Puerto Princesa Underground River (PPUR) was voted as one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature in 2012.
The other more famous PAs in Palawan are the Calauit Game Preserve and Wildlife Sanctuary; Coron Island Protected Area; El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Areas; Malampaya Sound Protected Landscape and Seascape; and Ursula Island Game Refuge.
Some of these PAs were included on a list of 100 PAs sought for stronger protection measure by a bill filed by Sen. Loren Legarda, called the Expanded-Nipas Act.
While the bill passed through smooth-sailing in the Senate, it was, however, stalled because of debate over inclusion of several PAs in the province in the House of Representatives, with the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) standing against the proposed measure’s enactment.
Palawan is known to host unique species of flora and fauna, which makes this biodiversity-rich province important for conservation.
Plagued
CLEMENTE Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment, said Palawan is plagued with several environment-destructive projects and activities, including large-scale mining operations, palm-oil plantations and militarization.
According to Bautista, Palawan is the remaining island in the Philippines with large forest cover, rich biodiversity and bestowed with bountiful natural resources.
In 1990 the Unesco declared it Man and Biosphere Reserve. It is adjacent to Tubbataha Reef, a globally important marine ecosystem. But decades of mining operation, establishment of palm-oil plantations, proliferation of military bases and exercises are making Palawan the last frontier no more,” he said.
According to Bautista, the large-scale nickel-mining operation by Zamora-Sumitomo-owned Nickel Asia Corp. is ravaging the forest in Rio Tuba and damaging the nearby river and marine ecosystems.
“More mining operations are denuding the forest in different parts of Palawan. Citinickel is clearing the forest in Sofronio Espanola. It was suspended because of mine spill in 2013 in Narra, Palawan, but was allowed again by the DENR to operate in 2015,” he said.
Another problem plaguing Palawan, Bautista said, is the palm-oil plantations, which have already converted around 6,000 hectares of forest land in the municipalities of Soforino Española, Brooke’s Point, Bataraza, Rizal, Quezon, Aborlan and Narra.
“The plantation not only destroyed our forest, but also displacing communities and losing local livelihoods,” he lamented.
Conservation
CHUCK Baclagon of the group 350.org said the urgency to protect Palawan’s ecosystem from destructive industries, like mining and coal, can never be overemphasized.
He said protecting Palawan’s ecosystem is vital not only because it hosts two Unesco World Heritage sites, but more so because Palawan’s plight is a microcosm of the current crisis that besets the Philippine environment: known for its biodiversity, the island-province’s pristine environment and abundant natural resources could supply the needs of its denizens for generations to come.
“Unfortunately, commercial interests of extractive industries have turned it into a battlefield where economic and political interests are waging a war over its economic and geopolitical value,” he said.
According to Baclagon, Palawan’s pristine environment, the top reason many visitors come to the province, is under threat by the planned construction of DM Consunji’s 15-megawatt coal-fired power plant that has moved to three different proposed sites because of community opposition since 2013.
“Carbon emissions from energy production are the largest source of greenhouse gases that cause global warming,” he said.
Coal comprises 35 percent of the country’s energy mix. But without intervention, the Philippines is looking at 70-percent dependence on coal from 2030 to 2050, Baclagon stressed.
“Palawan is one of the top megadiversity hot spots in the world. We cannot let a coal plant add to its growing list of threats. It is home to different indigenous groups whose lives will be directly affected.
“As well as a refuge to hundreds of marine and terrestrial endangered species, the constant threat that looms over the island is but a reflection of the current profit-over-people-and-ecosystems conflict that besets the Philippines. We cannot afford to have corporations with poor environmental track records destroy our last ecological frontier,” he said.
West Papua
ARTHUR Rodriguez Ventura, former director of the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, wants Palawan to follow West Papua’s footsteps.
The Indonesian province was declared World Conservation Province by The Coral Triangle and the World Wildlife Fund in October last year—a first for both Indonesia and the rest of the world.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, the honor was “symbolically important in ensuring the future health of the province’s astonishing ecosystems.”
“Besides its rain forests, West Papua is the world’s epicenter of marine biodiversity, boasting more species than anywhere else on the planet,” the WWF said.
Almost half of Indonesia’s biodiversity is contained within the two Papuan provinces. Its forests and coasts are rich in climate-stabilizing carbon and untold biological resources.
Gaining such declaration would make Mother Nature happy for Palawan, but it will be a declaration of war against greedy businessmen, their protectors and powerful politicians.
Ventura way
AS a kid, Ventura was already a lover of nature.
Understandable, because he was born and grew up in Coron, one of Palawan’s tourism jewels and where many of its lakes are considered the cleanest and greenest in the Philippines up to now.
Ventura loved watching Tarzan movies, mesmerized at seeing Johnny Weismuller cling from one vine to another with his panther friend, swim in a refreshingly clear river, and imagined basking in a very clean environment with his lovely Jane. He longed to be lord of the jungle.
In the days of Tarzan, poachers already existed in the forest, killing elephants for their ivory tusks, hunting tigers, lions and trapping birds to be sold. But Tarzan emerged as their protector, as well as of Africa’s flora and fauna.
He once fought against businessman-poachers who erected seaweed-farming structures in the Tubbataha Reef, now a World Heritage Site. The stilts have now been demolished.
Lonely war
VENTURA ran for governor of Palawan in the May 9 elections and lost against money and power. Today he is still fighting a lonely war but, like Tarzan, is hoping for a Divine Intervention so that the wanton abuse of Palawan’s natural resources could be contained.
He wants Palawan be like what it was used to be—abundant, rich in forest and marine resources, and indigenous peoples are happy.
Along with many Palaweños who are concerned about environmental plunder in the province, Ventura hopes that the E-Nipas Act of 2015, providing protection for the country’s declared protected areas in the country, be passed soon.
It will give double protection for five fragile Palawan PAs, he said. These PAs include the following: the El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area, Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, Malampaya Sound Protected Land and Seascape, Rasa Island Wildlife Sanctuary and the Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape. He hopes that some lawmakers connected with mining and other interests in the province should not exclude them out of the bill.
Ray of hope
AT age 6, Ventura was already helping augment the family income at a time when hardship was still being felt because of World War II. His father was a school principal and his mother president of a women’s club that put up the town’s first puericulture center.
At age 15, Ventura worked as an attendant, assisting a doctor, like a midwife, sanitary inspector and nurse, rolled into one, doing all medical work like prenatal care, autopsy, vaccination, injection and minor operation.
After graduating in high school with academic honors, his father let Ventura and his brothers and sisters find their own fortune, confident that he had instilled in them his disciplinarian ways to face the world.
He did many odd jobs in Manila, like working in a restaurant just so he can enter college. He lived with her older sisters, moving from one sister to another to get free board and lodging. Then his first ray of hope came.
The Mapúa School of Engineering had announced a qualifying chess game. Top finishers will get an athletic scholarship and be included in the school’s varsity team.
Chess game
VENTURA would win and even go further—bag the national inter-collegiate championship.
He was on cloud nine when a newspaper article bannered his triumph: “Unknown from Palawan beats intercollegiate champion from UST.”
Chess had paid off for Ventura, a game that was a family pastime. “I thank my father-mentor and brothers for that,” he said.
After winning the championship, Far Eastern University (FEU) took interest on him and offered him a scholarship he cannot refuse. Apart from a college scholarship, he was offered an employment at the university’s accounting department during that time, a big extra bonus that allowed him to help his other siblings Caesar, Lyn and Patricia to finish their own college degrees.
He, too, helped struggling Palaweños at the FEU. As soon as he graduated with an Economics degree, he enrolled for a Master’s in Marketing and, some two years later, entered law.
Ventura married Marilou Galman Cruz after only 20 days of courtship. The two met on the FEU campus while the latter was securing academic records to comply with her UST thesis as architecture student. Cruz would eventually pass her thesis defense with flying colors, even topping the architectural board exam.
Ways possible
THE couple settled in Palawan and continued to help the people in many ways possible.
Their willing hand extended to regional sports meet in order for Palawan to perform well in the Southern Tagalog Regional Athletic Association.
They went out of their way to finance and find funds for medicines of sick friends and neighbors. Love for each other gave them four children: Pamela, Fiona, Justine and Joshua, and grandchildren Lian and Zia.
Ventura went into the gas station and burger-chain business to be able to sustain his civic-mindedness. His wife contributed by squeezing funds from her professional practice.
As the saying goes: “When you help, don’t expect something in return; when you are in a position to share, do share.” Ventura took this seriously.
Perhaps, that was the reason the late President Corazon Aquino appointed him as vice governor of Palawan (officer in charge) after the Edsa People Power protest in 1986.
Legacy building
AS one who champions progress without abusing Mother Nature, Ventura wants to leave a legacy of protecting Palawan’s environment.
He longs to see the Last Frontier as the first frontier in well-managed resources and developing renewable energy, not coal power plants.
As a longtime environmentalist, Ventura wants Palaweños to distance themselves from destructive mining and promote the tourism industry sustainably. He continues to fight against land grabbing done with use of force or deceit, and these lands returned to their rightful owners.
Ventura wants people to respect the rule of law, for nobody is above the law.
As in a chess game, Ventura has made his move and wants people together in one chess team—to protect Palawan’s precious natural resources. As a true Palaweño, he fears that plantation agriculture, especially oil palm, could emerge as the newest threat to Palawan’s remaining forests.
“The continuing disappearance of Philippine wildlands is of great concern. In this respect, we should save Palawan from plunderers and make its forests proudly intact,” Ventura said. “We were voted, and continue to be vote, as the best island-tourism destination worldwide in many magazine polls year after year. This is effort, not luck.”
Ventura said Palawan has “made it this far as icon for the Philippines as a prime tourist destination.”
“Let us not destroy it.”
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