I DON’T KNOW if it is part of growing old, but I had been feeling a sense of guilt not very long ago as to what in the world I can do to give back to the land and the people that helped me become the happy person that I am today.
You see, in my little pond as a forester, I might have created ripples as one with a bent on the ABCs of putting thoughts on paper, using passable grammar and fluency, be it in English, Filipino, Ilokano, or Isinay.
In like manner, sometime in my journey as a manggugúbat, I might have also made virtual footprints in forestry extension, upland development, social forestry, and community-based natural resources management.
And so it came to pass that, insofar as my anting-anting on writing & editing is concerned, I got assignments as feature, news and editorial writer… editor of magazines, newsletters, books, conference proceedings, master’s theses, doctoral dissertations… and ghostwriter of speeches, seminar papers, and project reports – nearly all of them on forestry and forest-related matters.
As for people-focused forest management, my rudimentary grasp of it has at least made me bold enough to be part of a team that advised field staff of the PNOC in Negros Oriental, Southern Leyte, and Sorsogon on how to make life better for needy communities living around geothermal plants.
I have also been part of a team that explored Hanunoo country in Mindoro, the Kalahan community in Nueva Vizcaya, and the Sagada-Besao area in Mt. Province for possible learning sites of the BFD Upland Development Program.
And once upon a time, too, I was with a fact-finding mission that for a week visited Ilongot/Bugkalot communities to listen to their differing views on the then planned construction of the 26-km tunnel that would siphon water from Casecnan River in Nueva Vizcaya and take it to the ricefields of Nueva Ecija.
While in college, I might have really taken to heart Elbert Hubbard’s concept of loyalty (“If you work for a man, in heaven’s name work for him, speak well of him, and stand by the institution he represents").
That’s why I never growled.
In 2013, however, I got into a soul-searching of sorts. I think this was in General Santos, if not Dumaguete, when my compadre Forester Bien Dolom and I went to share tips to LGU planning officers and DENR technical personnel on how to make Forest Land Use Plans more useful, sexy, and readable.
Noticing how receptive our audiences were, I could not help asking myself this: “Bakit ikaw, Carlo, nakakatulong sa ibang bayan at sa ibat-ibang tao… pero sa Dupax at mga kababayan mo, ano?”
It was actually a repeat of the soliloquy I did five years earlier while on “vacation” at the Baguio Medical Center for myocardial infarction, where I said to myself: “Ania metten, ngannganikan natay gapu lang iti trabahom… ngem awan pay uray maysa a naaramidmo para iti ilim!” (My goodness, you almost died because of your work… but you haven’t done anything yet for your own town!)
This earlier conscience-pricking event was my first time to realize my mortality – as in tao pala ako, at meron ding expiry date.
I recall my doctor saying I needed to reduce the girth of my tummy. But I guessed then my heart was just saying hello.
Well, it was because a week earlier, along with my “CBRM family” at the Department of Finance, I went into stressful days and coffee/beer-energized nights of furious work to meet the NEDA’s requirements, and the deadline, for the completion report of the multi-agency and World Bank-assisted Community-Based Resource Management Project that sought to pump-prime 120 or so LGUs in Bicol, the Eastern Visayas, the Central Visayas, and Caraga in the upkeep of their forest, mangrove, marine, and ecotourism resources.
Pero – alleluia! At salamat sa Poong Maykapal, nandito pa ako.
[CONTINUED ON PART 2]
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