My deepest sympathies to the family and relatives of Jorge and Josie T. Pawid for the peaceful passing of their father, uncle and grandfather Ireneo Tabadero Sr., 83. The same sincere commiserations to Publisher-Editor Alfred P. Dizon and his family and relatives for the untimely departure of their mother, aunt and grandmother Shirley Pacyaya Dizon, 88. We pray for the serene journey of their souls to their final destinations as we ask the Almighty to bless the bereaved families.
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I remember my mom called the green thorny plants around our house “century plants”. A cousin called them “Maguey” while another relative called them “Agave”. The juicy plant looks like the Aloe around the house too.
The Maguey plant naturally grows in the Cordillera and has many uses. After its wide leaf is cleaned of its thorns, it is heated until it becomes bendable to be used in cooking meat recipes. Others say, the shoots can be cooked and eaten.
I have not seen anyone eating the plant nor using it for cooking, but I tried utilizing it by removing its thorn at the tip and using it to stitch together rice sacks. I read that others dried the plant and used its fibrous leaf to make ropes. So there you have Maguey ropes.
The plant is invasive as it multiplies fast as long as there is space to grow on. In countries where it grows abundantly, the plant is harvested for its sweet liquid that is fermented into an alcoholic drink called Maguey mezcal.
Just like tequila from Mexico and Vodka from Russia, the demand for mescal drink in bars and restaurants in Central and South America has increased, said a report from Mexico, a country that controls propagation of Maguey plants through its Mescal Regulatory Agency.
These different uses of the succulent plant portray how countries utilize it in many ways; to get high, tipsy, crazy, economically or otherwise. Meanwhile in the Cordillera, the juicy plant will be used to help stop forest fires from spreading.
That is the latest update that the DENR in the Cordillera revealed to the media in a press conference last week. Recall that natural and manmade fires made communities helpless as the forests in their vicinity were destroyed.
Starting from the middle of the first quarter of the year until before the rains came in May, the DENR assessed that 8,314.29 ha of timber areas around Baguio were destroyed by fires, followed by 679.57 ha around Buguias, Benguet and 635.33 ha in Sabangan, Mtn. Province.
Here’s hoping that the experiment of propagating juicy Maguey plants around forest stands could indeed help prevent wildfires from spreading on either side.
After a stint as regional director of the Bicol region, Engr. Paquito Moreno Jr. came home to get back his “ancestral” seat as regional executive director of the DENR Cordillera. If my memory is right, the last time I dropped by his Diego Silang office as RED was in 2012.
He was not only RED in the region, even his lips were literally red due to that concoction in the mouth that makes the tongue loose and the brain sharper, or the other way around. However, what is important is that with that lime mixture in the mouth, the informant is able to relate the agency’s news to the newspaper correspondent.
Speaking of news reportage, RED Moreno confirmed that the DENR central office recently ordered all its local offices nationwide to refrain from issuing statements to the media prior to an approval from upstairs. Partnership between DENR and the media is broken this time.
The DENR officials said they had to request permission from the central office to hold the press briefing for the environment month, otherwise it could not have been scheduled. On our side as media practitioners, I told RED Moreno about the difficulty of performing our role as news carriers if the DENR central office order was strictly followed.
The worst scenario that could happen is that a reporter could cover, publish and broadcast controversial news regarding the environment that he gathered during field work, but minus the side of the DENR this time, as waiting for a “permission to speak” would delay the timeliness of the report. Certainly, with this, the government agency would be at a loss.
The same predicament was experienced when the PNP ordered its regional offices to have media persons accredited before the police officials granted news interviews. The media looked at the gag as illogical because it would be ironic to ask the reporter to have himself accredited when in the first place, it was the police agency that requested for news coverage.
These nonsense orders are synonymous to news blackouts and tantamount to curtailing the freedom of newsmakers and news sources to share to the public and taxpayers who pay their salaries the information that they deserve.
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Last week, the NCIP in exercise of its visitorial powers over indigenous peoples organizations who have agreements with the agency served an order requesting Pendon Thompson, the former president of the La Trinidad Indigenous Peoples Organization (LTIPO) to handover the Land Bank passbook and other properties to the new leadership of the organization.
Rightly so, he has to comply. First reason is because he resigned as LTIPO president in November last year therefore, he no longer had any authority to be holding on to the Land Bank passbook; second, the passbook is for the savings account of the LTIPO, it is not his personal account.
The Honorable Thompson, the former IPMR of La Trinidad said that he never held the passbook which some LTIPO officers beg to disagree because as signatory to the withdrawals and other entries in the bank account, it is normal for him to check the contents of the passbook, unless he had an ATM through which he withdrew money. That will be found out soon.
