TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA) –Blessings continue to pour upon a tribal community which decided to help manage, conserve and preserve their forests not just for their posterity but also for the environment that direly needs a little help.
Lundag Eskaya Tribe and their Multi-purpose Cooperative (LETMULCO) recently received a 5.4 megawatt solar electrification package that would be capable of powering their food processing business.
Through Meralco group of companies’ corporate social responsibility channeled to One Meralco Foundation (OMF), Letmulco, through its chairman Apolonio Bia Jr,. together with Pilar Mayor Engr. Wilson Pajo, Lundag Barangay Chairman Edelio Balaba Sr., and its members gratefully accepted from OMF the operational solar package through OMF executive director Jeffrey Tarayao, August 14.
The solar electrification package with solar panels installed on top of the barangay covered court, can also serve the Barangay government in times of emergency.
Organized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) through its Integrated Natural Resources and Environment Management Program (INREMP), Letmulco understood that the need to reforest and rehabilitate forests and fill in idle areas with forest cover can help Bohol secure a protection against calamities and the creeping effects of climate change.
Eskaya, the tribe they are on, have subsisted on farming and traditional ventures into the forest for food and lumber for shelter, and hundreds of years of this practice has presented an unsustainable situation: forests are becoming thinner as the tribal population increased.
With their participation in the reforestation and environmental rehabilitation especially in their ancestral domains, the Eskaya tribe can even enhance their natural grounds.
Through INREMP, instead of venturing into the forests for food, Eskayas went into camote and banana farming, which still contributes to the program objectives, the DENR said.
In exchange for committing to replant and reclaim most of the forests affected by human encroachment, natural calamities and the effects of changing climate, in exchange for their participation in the environmental rehabilitation, the DENR through INREMP granted the community farm to market road projects, infrastructure and a livelihood package that includes a livelihood shed, banana and camote chip slicer and shredder, freezers and other heavy duty food processing equipment, shared Bia Jr, during the turn over ceremonies.
Immediately, the women in the tribe underwent food processing training and operationalized their business, which is a strong support for Bohol’s tourism industry.
And then, just as the food processing business was starting to boom, typhoon Odette blew off their ambitions.
About 50-60% of the livelihood shed was damaged, the equipment and food processing that we were able to salvage, could not operate because of the power outage.
We were back to zero, admits Bia, who is restarting to nurse back the coop members to be active in the organization.
And then came One Meralco, which picked 7 people’s organization in Pilar town to help in their companies’ One Merlaco For Trees Program of planting one million trees.
As a OMF partner in the One for Trees Program, OMF visited Eskaya to see what they can do, shared Tarayao, during the program.
As we were working on the electrification package, we did not know that Letmulco also availed of the Department of Science and Technology’s Community Enhancement through Science and Technology, which grated the group additional food processing equipment like industrial baking ovens and, Tarayao said.
We figured, a solar power package through OMF’s Agriculture and Livelihood Electrification could help them operate so that power outages could not hamper their operations.
With 5.4 MW of solar power, Letmulco sure can now restart their business and further help reduce their people from overexploiting the forest for additional livelihood. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
