DPWH to cut old trees along MacArthur Highway: To pave the way for road widening

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga , Philippines   – At least 1,211 trees of different variety along MacArthur highway from the municipality of Apalit to this city will be cut for the widening of McArthur Highway.

The cutting of trees was part of the road widening scheme by the Regional Department of Public Works and Highways that started since last week of June this year.

Aside from the trees in the Pampanga portion of the MacArthur Highway, about 1,001 trees will be cut from Bamban to Capas in Tarlac and some 2,192 other trees from Tarlac City to San Manuel town, also in Tarlac.

But, a group of Kapampangan Artists painted man to several acacia trees from Barangays Balite to Telebastagan this city, showing that the group opposed the cutting of trees.

The group reportedly is against the cutting of the trees along MacArthur Highway because the road widening is untimely and an impractical move.

Thousands of various trees have already been reportedly cut in Bulacan, particularly along the stretch cutting through Malolos City.

Environment Secretary Jose Atienza Jr., recently, through Regional Director Antonio Principe, granted the DPWH Regional Office headed by Director Alfredo Tolentino a clearance to cut the decades-old trees affected by ongoing road widening and rehabilitation of the public works agency as embodied in the approved plans of the Regional Development Council last year.

Atienza issued the clearance through an earlier memorandum directing the DENR regional office here to issue a “Special Tree Cutting and Earth-Balling Permit” over the trees in favor of the DPWH.

It was learned that billboards notifying the public that the project is authorized by the DENR have been put up in the affected municipalities of Apalit, San Simon, Minalin and this city, whose “Acacia Stretch” from Barangay San Agustin to Telabastagan will be hardly hit by the move.

Tolentino said the identified and inventoried trees with diameters at breast heights from 26 centimeters and larger will be cut and the logs, timber and derivable wood materials from the tree cutting will be “stockpiled and turned over to the local environment office” for proper disposition.

Trees to be cut by the DPWH for road widening include 779 fully grown Acacia, 36 balete, 175 camachile, 59 mango, and 60 narra trees. Scores of trees with commercial value include molave, tamarind, gmelina and rubber trees.

Another 370 small sized trees or saplings with diameters at breast height of 25 centimeters and smaller shall be “earth-balled” and transplanted in areas jointly identified by the DPWH and the local environment office concerned.