Emerson D.

Espina January 27, 2020

SFFG 123 – V Prof. Clarissa Ruzol

Paper #1: Deforestation and “Kaingin”

The role/s of “kaingin” in deforestation as understood by the Philippine government are

the following; it serve as the main problem why forests are declining rapidly, it contributes on
having more infertile lands and it serves as an excuse for the government to create a policy
that is supposedly address the problem of deforestation but it just covered the other
government activities that are obviously self-serving and selfish without really considering
other people’s livelihood or source of money.
“Kaingin” is said to be a usual way to farm trees in the Philippines, which is already
present for quite a long time. Originally it is indeed not bad, for it earlier procedures
guarantees the sustainability of land to recover and be fertile again, but due to societal
inequities and misinformation of most of the poor lowland Filipinos, they misused “kaingin”
that leads to a new problem which is the inevitable mismanagement of lands due to their
wrong practices and large number which is not advisable in the current forest cover that we
have. So the Philippine government is quick to point fingers to all “kaingineros” due to their
unregulated and inappropriate way to farm trees.
According to the article, because of one article released before with a title “Who says
‘kaingin’ is bad?” it influenced the public views and the type of government policy created.
Due to this effect, most of the people accept this claim and with the little cover of forest now
in the Philippines we can expect a great catastrophic effect in return. In the recorded history
there comes a time wherein migration was promoted making “kaingin” to serve as a “safety
valve” or a fail-safe activity during those times. But it is evident that it is only sustainable at
low population density because of the need for free access to large areas of land. But due to
increase in population, it becomes necessary to increase the period of fallow. More land is
cultivated in an attempt to maintain total yield, leading to the degradation of even more land.
The government created policies to address what they identify as a problem and one of the
well known and the earliest policy about “kaingin” is the Republic Act No. 3701 of 1939.
Under this policy is the Sec. 2751: Unlawful occupation or destruction of public forest.
Without the written permission of the Director of Forestry or his duly authorized
representative, it shall be unlawful for any person willfully to enter upon any public forest,
proclaimed timberland, communal forest, communal pasture, and forest reserve and occupy
the same, or to make "kaingin" therein or in any manner destroy such forest or part thereof, or
to cause any damage to the timber stand and other forest products and forest growth found
therein, or to assist, aid or abet any other person so to do. It shall also be unlawful for any
person negligently to permit a fire which has been set upon his own premises to be
communicated, with destructive results, to any of the public forests hereinabove described.
The policy made by the Philippine government did not really help the country to
address the problem, because they have a misunderstanding on to what problem they really
need to solve. The root cause of the problem in deforestation lies on the mismanagement,
corruption and injustices from the government. Because of the reasons the poor people left no
choice but to practice “kaingin” to survive during the time of intensive corruption and abuse
of the government of its power. They gave priorities to their allies and cronies that made the
rich become more rich and the poor, poorer. These inequities in our society forced for the
misuse of the “kaingin” knowing or not that it is only doable on low density cultivation and a
large area for it to operate.