Itogon landslide victims get livelihood under NGP

AFFECTED families of Typhoon Ompong in Itogon, Benguet are set to receive technical training assistance from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources under the National Greening Program.

In the weekly Talakayan sa Environment Code, City Environment and Natural Resources Officer Reineer Valbuena explained this was in response to governments immediate support to the victims of the previous typhoon in the Benguet Province.

“Right now, we are determining the specific livelihood assistance for those families directly affected by the typhoon and under the National Regreening Program,

we are hoping that they will directly benefit from the proceeds of the program for their alternative livleihood,” Valbuena said.

Executive Order 26 describes the NGP as a program seeking to plant some 1.5 billion trees covering about 1.5 million hectares in lands of the public domain.

These lands include forestlands, mangrove and protected areas, ancestral domains, civil and military reservations, and urban areas.

“This is their direct engagement through a memorandum of agreement wherein we will be assisting them in the planting of trees through technical assistance from government wherein they would directly benefit from the proceeds of the program,” the CENRO Officer stated.

Under the provisional incentives, all proceeds from agroforestry plantations, duly accounted by the DENR, will add to the NGP beneficiary communities particularly Itogon which will be given priority in the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Through the use of appropriate science and technology, the targeted areas and inputs will be identified; land use optimized (determining site-specific crops/ trees and markets); seedling quality ensured; and organic/ biofertilizers, such as Mycorrhizal fungi and vermi-composting, employed.

“Through a provisional assistance, we will be grouping them through their barangay officials,” Valbuena added.