Wanted: A look into COA and the wood industry!

Last Saturday, the Rotary Club of Cebu (Mother) inaugurated the Community Scouts Youth Rehabilitation and Guidance Center (CSYGC) which has been one of the Mother Club’s longest running project reaching as long as 25 years. This project is located in Barangay Duljo-Fatima and it aims to help our poor children become better citizens. This project was adopted with Councilor Margot Osmeña’s Cebu City Street Children Foundation, the Rotary International’s World Community Service Program, the Yotsukaido Rotary Club of Japan, the Don Bosco Vocation School, the USC Training Center and Sen. Migs Zubiri who touched the heart of Cebuanos.

I told Sen. Zubiri that the recent testimony of Heidi Mendoza against corrupt officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) did not only bring to light the corruption within the AFP, but that that the Commission on Audit (COA) has failed miserably to stop corruption or worse… a lot of these COA officials probably helped these corrupt officials. COA auditors are so damn strict when it comes to the purchase of small items, like pencils or paper, but the big ticket items seem to have slipped away unnoticed!

What is very disturbing to us is that no one cared to look at the COA. But I learned from Sen. Migz that Commission on Audit (COA) Chairman Reynaldo Villar and his predecessors have been summoned to appear before the House Committee on Justice when it resumes its inquiry on the AFP case tomorrow. Well, I guess it is time to change the name of COA from Commission on Audit to Corruption no Audit! In fairness to the majority of COA employees, they are just like Heidi Mendoza who earn a living; it is the few who succumb to either political pressure or embrace corruption who destroy the integrity of the COA. Perhaps we should consider abolishing the COA because they haven’t stopped corruption and save the government money.

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Remember the statement “Haste makes waste?” This is what happens to us when we make rash or emotional decisions without consulting the stakeholders who gets affected by these decisions. This is what’s happening now that President Aquino has already signed Presidential Order No. 23 declaring an indefinite total log ban in the whole country. P-Noy apparently signed this ban without looking at the consequences of this order to the stakeholders in the wood industry.

Now the Philippine Wood Producer Association (PWPA) has revealed that this nationwide ban will not only result in the massive retrenchment of some 650,000 direct workers in the wood processing industry, it would lead to the loss of some P30 billion in investments in the wood industry, which also exports high-value wood products from the furniture industry. Mandaue City will undoubtedly be hit by a double whammy because of this Presidential order because they export such high-value furniture.

The Mandaue furniture industry was hit hard when global recession hit the US economy because no one was buying new homes. No new homes means no new furniture and America was their biggest market. Now only a handful of furniture companies are still operating. But how can they survive when they can’t get wood from their suppliers, thanks to the log ban?

The problem with the logging industry is that loggers cut trees and do not replant. Worse of all, they get logging concessions in areas where the cutting of trees should not be allowed. In Europe and in many areas in Canada or North America, the logging industry is robust because loggers have to plant two or three trees before they can cut down one tree. This is why their logging industry continues to flourish through the years because they have a system in place, where the trees that are cut get replenished. We totally agree with environmentalists that there should be no cutting of trees in critical areas because it causes the flooding of the lowlands.

However in Bohol, there is now a growing industry of mangrove planting and harvesting. There is a man-made mangrove forest in Banacon Island right between Cebu and Bohol, which produces “Bakhaw” which is used as firewood and sold in Cebu. In these times when the prices of cooking gas have hit the roof, a lot of households use “bakhaw” as firewood. Best of all, these mangroves are replanted and so it replenishes itself.

Again, it is up to the Aquino administration to give this Presidential order a second look because he issued the Log ban when he saw the devastation in the Cagayan Valley. But while it is the right thing to do there, this Presidential order affects us in Mandaue City, Cebu. It’s clear to me that the Aquino Administration’s solution to illegal logging is akin to burning the whole barn because of the presence of a few rats! What we need is a comprehensive solution to the problems in our wood industry.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected] or vsbobita@gmail. com. His columns can be accessed through http://www.philstar.com.