The worsening forest destruction in the country has brought disasters especially during typhoons. To help address the issue, President Benigno Aquino III signed Executive Order No. 23 declaring a moratorium on the harvesting of timber in forests nationwide and creating the Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force. With strengthened forest monitoring, further forest destruction has been prevented. Nineteen (19) logging concessions were closed down and more than 32,000 board feet of illegal timber were confiscated. More than 1,500 illegal logging cases were filed in court and convicted more than 200 violators. The confiscated timbers were made into 146,000 desks and chairs that were donated to the Department of Education (DepEd). Others were used to repair almost 400 school buildings. The number of illegal logging hotspots in the country was reduced by 88 percent, from 210 municipalities to 23 municipalities in 2010.
By virtue of Executive Order # 26, the National Greening Program (NGP) was launched. The program aims to help mitigate the effects of climate change by fast tracking the reforestation efforts of the government. Its target is to grow 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares nationwide in six year during the period of Pres. Aquino’s term as president of the country.
Through video presentation, NGP success story of a Manobo Tribe in Agusan Del Sur headed by Datu Subang was shown. From being illegal loggers, they now become forest defenders when they were granted a Community-Based Forest Management permit under the NGP Program by DENR. This he said has brought to them a lot of opportunities to improve their life. Having planted 247 hectares of land with falcata, 110 hectares with rubber trees, 41 with fruit trees, and 73 with indigenous species, he is positive that this will give their tribe a better life.