THE island of Luzon is traversed by three mountain ranges. Its geological spine, the Sierra Madre Mountain Range, is a 540-kilometer stretch from Cagayan to Quezon. The Cordillera Mountain Range, measuring 320 kilometers cuts through Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino and Nueva Ecija, and between the two is the Carballo Mountain Range. These three nurture the headwaters of the mighty Cagayan River. The Sierra Madre and Cordillera were so impenetrable, the Spanish empire could barely stake territory with Cross and Sword.
Now a strange and insidious thing is happening in the Sierra Madre, especially in its mountain slopes in the provinces of Rizal and Laguna. Big businessmen from Manila are buying tracts of land there; it is whispered that some operate through dummies, natural or juridical, and acquire land covered by tax declarations which, as any law student will tell you, are not conclusive proof of ownership.
For tax declarations to ripen into ownership, the holder of said tax declarations must be in possession of the land, which in their case is impossible since most of them have only set foot once or twice on the land that they claim and thereafter return to their posh residences in Metro Manila.
The properties that they are acquiring, or they have acquired, are strategically located, and their clear purpose is to deprive adjacent landowners of their right-of-way to their own properties. Most of those who are deprived of physical access are proprietors of small pieces of land or subsistence farmers who are forced to sell their properties for a pittance or to abandon this altogether. What is the use of owning land when guards of big businessmen block your right to enter your own property? The forests of Sierra Madre used to be impenetrable, now they are also inaccessible.
The more knowledgeable and well-off landowners file cases in court to enforce right-of-way easements, which were illegally closed, an expensive process which clogs our courts. Others are asking for reversion of the misused lands back to the government under the Regalian Doctrine because they say that forest and public lands should be used for the commonweal and not to foster individual or corporate greed.
As a result, no schools are being built in the interior, land cannot be obtained for recreation, health and evacuation centers. Farmers no longer have the motivation to cultivate the soil because of the lack of farm-to-market roads which previous administrations should have built. Connectivity, not isolation, especially in an archipelagic State, is the sine qua non for national development.
The Sierra Madre should be opened by the building of roads outlined in cadastral maps made by the government ages ago or delineated by cadastral courts. Oftentimes, these maps show roads now referred to as barangay roads with widths of 20 meters. The opening of these roads would solve the right-of-way issues. The government could also use idle highlands to generate Aeolic energy.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. takes the energy problem seriously. As a young governor of Ilocos Norte, he knew that the Philippines had to secure its sources of energy in order to sustain economic growth and development. I remember how fascinated he was with wind turbines and alternative sources of energy that are environment-friendly. He used to have miniature wind turbines made as giveaways, attached to keychains and mounted on ashtray and silk-screened on T-shirts.
Ilocos Norte now has wind farms, the first in the Philippines, that are sources of renewable energy. These gigantic windmills facing the West Philippine Sea have become tourist attractions.
Several months ago, President Marcos, together with his son, Ferdinand Alexander Marcos 3rd, inaugurated a 160-megawatt wind farm, the largest in the country. Wind turbines placed in appropriate places in the Sierra Madre can be built only as high as Meralco posts. But how could we build these sources of energy if unscrupulous individuals close the gates to hundreds of hectares in the interior of the Sierra Madre?
Most of our power needs are still obtained from traditional sources, subject to the fickle laws of supply and demand, and scarcity. We have millions of hungry mouths to feed, that is why agriculture, like wind power, is a priority of President Marcos.
The Sierra Madre has historically been the refuge of insurrectionists, revolutionaries, rebels and freedom fighters. The Hunters ROTC and the Marking's Guerillas, famed guerilla organizations that defied the Japanese during the Second World War, called the Sierra Madre their home. The Hukbalahap leader Luis Taruc used to end his letters with the words "Somewhere in the Sierra Madre."
Soon, the Sierra Madre may fall into the hands of people whose ideals are in direct contrast to those who have previously sought its refuge — and the process may become irreversible if we do not act in haste.
If only stones were known to move and trees to speak, they would voice their protest and stage their escape from the great lockdown at the Sierra Madre.