One way to reverse the massive denudation of our forests and to wipe out poverty is involving Filipinos here and abroad as stakeholder-investors, getting them to contribute and invest in purchasing interest-earning securities, to be called “Forest for the Poorest” bonds.
Go bold for the bald? This was one of the issues raised at the State of Nature Assessment (Sona) symposium organized by Green Convergence headed by Nina Galang, who stressed the need for bold measures to reverse the denudation of our bald forests.
She said, “We are already witnessing soil erosion, loss of fertile topsoil, flash floods and destruction of downstream ecosystems, including rivers and marine systems; ironic desertification during dry spells, despite our high rainfall; and, in the end, possibly deprive our children of nature’s resources that could sustain life.”
The Green Sona symposium is held yearly since 2007, but this year’s theme is “Our Land, Our Life”, which focuses on land issues like forests, plantation crops, climate change, etc.
Fr. Pete Montallana of the Save Sierra Madre Network revealed that our “virgin forests are now down to only 3 percent of their original state, which is alarming being among the world’s top in biodiversity in indigenous and endemic species of plants, animals and insects, with many becoming endangered. Apparently, we can say jestingly that ‘illegal logging’ proliferated because (‘kasi laging illegal’) everything was ‘always illegal’.
Why forest for the poorest bonds? A Forest for the Poorest bond is logical, strategic and can generate mass participation. For one, it is has a specific purpose—to help wipe out poverty in the countryside, where two-thirds of those living below poverty line reside.
Second, it can fund massive tree planting accompanied by upland agriculture and fruit orchards to pursue further upstream processing industries, like fruit juices, puree, jams, etc.
Third, investing in projects that generate higher value-added earnings will have a bigger impact because of its higher multiplier effects. More so because this will create solid physical wealth, better than the P65 billion a year Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, formerly Conditional Cash Transfer, which are “doleouts” spent on consumptive, not productive, expenditures.
Lesser costs for a cause. Last, if the government keeps on borrowing yearly anyway, why not borrow from the public as direct stakeholders, including the 12 million migrants and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) abroad.
For a cause, it is easier to sell these Forest for the Poorest bonds even at low rates, as people will support meaningful social-impact projects. After all, they are earning negligible bank-savings rates of less than 0.2 percent per annum, much lower than inflation rates.
Become bettor and better? Perhaps, we can revive concepts behind the “Biglang Bahay” and “Premyo Savings” bonds during the Marcos regime, which generated billions with their reward incentives that capitalized on people’s penchant for gambling (i.e., lotto, sweepstakes, race-track betting, masiao, online gambling, cockfighting, etc.) but transformed them into productive savings.
Huge OFW remittances, for one, could be discouraged from senseless gambling and consumptive spending sprees to more meaningful investments, like our Forest for the Poorest bonds that can come in multiple values like P1,000, P2,000, P5,000, P10,000, P20,000, etc., and attract both high-end investors and the hoi polloi or masses. Perhaps, for every so much worth of bonds, a raffle with rewards is granted.
This will encourage savings and investing while turning them into better bettors for a cause and simultaneously reverse the aversion toward countryside investing.
Agri-Agra loan compliance. Banks are mandated by law to lend 25 percent of their loans for agriculture and agrarian projects, but, finding this risky, they convinced the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to allow them an escape clause to invest in safe treasury bills as a form of compliance.
T-Bill investments only help shore up deficits of government and not geared at value-added production. Banks are awash with funds largely kept in vaults or in money investments, which only bolster financial growth of the economy but can actually mean stagnation in the real physical economy.
Domestic-savings rate in 2015 was 30.3 percent of gross national income, but gross capital formation rate was only 19.8 percent, which means surplus savings are held unproductively by banks, which could have been invested in rural investments, infrastructure and industries that create real jobs. Worse, credit to rural areas is shrinking further, reinforcing agricultural stagnation as more small banks are closing down, while commercial banks continue to shy away from rural lending.
But the Forest for the Poorest bonds can reverse this anomaly and allow banks to comply truly with Agri-Agra loan, while still investing in this government-guaranteed bonds. The 25 percent Agri-Agra can amount to maybe close to P1 trillion in funds for the countryside. The fund can be run by a People’s Public-Private Partnership Program for transparency and can be run by Regina Paz L. Lopez.
Dams you must, damned if you don’t. Another proposal worth exploring is the building of hundreds of thousands of small catch basins or mini dams on mountain slopes to harness rain water, effectively rebuilding watersheds that could provide irrigation for the tree planting and agro-forestry through contour farming and be the most effective climate-adaptation strategy to prevent soil erosion, downstream flooding and droughts.
The same mini dams can be stocked with fish and be a source of potable water with technological treatment. They can be built in a pick-and-shovel construction frenzy that can generate millions of jobs, similar to what US President Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the 1930’s Great Depression, when he created 4 million jobs in a month’s time, equivalent to over 10 million today, says a book by Nick Taylor entitled When FDR put the Nation to Work.
These mini dams to retain water are vital, otherwise these projects get damned with high failure rates.
E-mail: mikealunan@yahoo.com