Senator Joel Villanueva on Monday, January 17 said the bulk of this year’s P2.26 billion reforestation fund should go to ‘typhoon ’Odette’’-hit areas so that victims could earn while replanting trees in lands described as having been “scraped by steel brush.’’
‘’Using the P2.26 billion National Greening Program (NGP) budget of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) could provide jobs to residents whose livelihood has also been “blown off by the typhoon,” Villanueva said.
The government is in the position to use the NGP money to serve the “employment and the environment” requirements in disaster areas, he added.
“The destruction of forest and mangrove cover has made them more vulnerable to future typhoons and the landslides they cause,” Villanueva explained.
“But the good thing is that the government has the money to restore this with the added bonus of providing much needed jobs to people who will work on it,” Villanueva said.
He said NGP funds could be spent on mangrove planting as this foreshore greenbelt, in addition to providing food as fish nursery, and serves as a “tsunami and storm surge armor” for coastal communities that climate change has made more vulnerable to the frequent storms it unleashes.
“This is a marriage of disaster relief and disaster resilience,’’ Villanueva explained.
Launched in 2011, the P2.26 billion for the NGP funds one of the banner programs in the P19 billion budget of the DENR for 2022.