The House of Representatives has approved in the plenary the proposed P27.1-billion budget of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). The budget is slightly higher, by 1.77 percent, from the current year’s budget of P26.6 billion.
Crucial to the budget allocation is the proposed P7.1-billion budget for the implementation of the Enhanced-National Greening Program (E-NGP), which aims to continue the successful reforestation initiated by the Aquino administration from 2010 to 2016.
In a news statement, Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu expressed gratitude to the lawmakers for their continued support to the agency, as well as to Rep. Corazon Nunez-Malanyaon of the First District of Davao Oriental, for sponsoring the department’s budget at the plenary.
Cimatu said the budget allocation would enable the department to give vital support to the goals of the 2017- 2022 Philippine Development Plan that the government has adopted, as per Executive Order 21, issued by President Duterte on June 1.
“With the budget, the DENR will work toward ensuring ecological integrity and improving the socioeconomic conditions of resource-based communities by sustaining biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystem services, improving environmental quality, and increasing the adaptive capacity and resilience of ecosystems,” Cimatu said.
Based on the DENR budget, the E-NGP gets the lion’s share of P7.1 billion, which seeks to plant some 198 million seedlings in 210,852 hectares.
From 2016 up to June this year, the DENR has recorded a total of 303,188 hectares of new plantations under E-NGP, generating some 1 million jobs in the process.
The Duterte administration hopes to reforest some 1.2 million hectares, from 2017 to 2022.
Under its 2018 budget, the DENR earmarked P1.25 billion for its intensified environmental protection program to pursue clean water, air and solid waste management; P1.08 billion for biodiversity conservation and the scaling-up of its Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management Program; P634 million for forest protection and anti-illegal logging campaign; P585.5 million for land administration and management; and P399.3 million for geohazard mapping, groundwater assessment and responsible mining.
For its attached agencies, the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority or NAMRIA, the National Water Resource Board (NWRB) and the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, will get P1.46 billion, P145 million and P100 million, respectively.