Brgy. Osman-San Dimas Producers Cooperative: best NGP implementer in Aklan

By Darwin Tapayan

Improved house of an OSPC member compared to a humble abode of a non-member in Osman village. OSPC members religiously maintain their backyard nurseries, even involving children in the family. Photo courtesy of DENR  VI

The Community-Based Forest Management in Aklan is actively participated by 23 community people’s organizations (PO’s). According to Chief, Technical Service Division V For. Merlene Aborka of Aklan Provincial Environment and Natural Resources (PENRO), eight of these 23 PO’s are government partners in National Greening Program (NGP) implementation. PENRO Ivene Reyes said that one of the best among these PO’s is the Osman-San Dimas Producers Cooperative (OSPC) in Brgy. Osman, Malinao, Aklan.

Osman is one of the two barangays in the last mountain range in the municipality of Malinao which is 14km far from the Brgy. Poblacion and 26km away from the provincial Capitol in Kalibo. The barangay has a total area of 1,600has wherein 1,300has of this is forestland or 77 percent of the total area. The DENR-Aklan granted the 1, 224.10has of the total forestland to the OSDPC where they were able to plant and maintain from 2011 to 2015.

According to the OSPC president, Nestor Tacud, in 1997, the DENR awarded to their organization the Community-Based Forest Management Agreement after engaging in the FSP – LOAN II Project in 1996. In 1999, the organization was then registered to Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) and in 2011, it was chosen as one of the NGP PO’s. In this year, the DENR-PENRO Aklan granted only 50has to them. He recalled the days when the project implementation in their area. He said that it took two years for him to convince people in the community to trust the program but he did not give up and kept on encouraging them.

In the first two years of the NGP implementation, they only got 63 percent survival rate in the first two years. Not until around 2014 and 2015 where he experienced the full engagement of the community and was able to get favorably high survival rate. In a comparable data based on the validation conducted by DENR, the OSPC got 94 percent survival rate in 2011, and an increase of three percent in 2013. In 2014, they got a total of 100 percent survival rate on their seedling production and plantation.

In this period of NGP implementation in their locality, the OSPC was able to grow forest trees such as mahogany, narra, and badlan. They also grew fruit trees for their consumption and livelihood that includes rambutan, mango, lanzones, and jackfruit.

The project not only aims to protect the environment and to mitigate climate change but in fact to bless the life of the people in the locality. For instance, from kaingero, Ruben now is earning money from maintaining and protecting plantation in reverse of his former activity. Members of the cooperative become well-known farmer and good forest manager because of NGP.

Before, many of the people in Brgy. Osman only got their living from copra and abaca production with minimal earning and decreasing source of production. The NGP was able to help them in seedling production, plantation establishment, and maintenance. They are now making capital for other livelihood such as poultry, fish pond, swine and hog production and microenterprises. It provides them source for the repair and improvement of their houses, buy decent clothing. And sense the common means of transportation in the area is motorcycle, most of the people now are able to own vehicle for their use.

OSPC president Tacud was able to send to college his son and daughter to earn degrees. Now they can attest how their family has been blessed by the NGP project. Neriel is now a licensed criminologist while his sister Maria Nia is a regular nurse. The cooperative is also maintaining scholarship in high school with ten recipients right now.

Mr. Tacud is looking forward that in 2016, the DENR will grant another 150has NGP plantation to their organization.

Malinao Mayor Wilbert Ariel Igoy expressed his gratitude to this people’s organization in their municipality that he attested blesses the lives of his constituents in that barangay. “Hindi ito nagtatapos sa pagtatanim, kailangan natin itong alagaan. Ito ay para sa atin, at para sa kinabukasan,” the mayor said.