Forestry administration and reforestation in Bulacan, Philippines: A case study of local forestry bureaucracy and the National Forestation Program

Forestry administration and the implementation of reforestation in the Philippines is being carried out through the Forest Management Bureau (FMB), a staff bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). The forestry bureaucracy has been a product of several political events which happened at the national level, since 1863 when the Inspeccion General de Montes was established until the advent of the Filipinization phase of forestry administration in the country. Yet, the influence of previous colonizers through their financial institutions still continues, most notably when reforestation was privatized in 1986 through the implementation of the National Forestation Program (NFP). The NFP is basically carried out by contracting reforestation activities to individual groups. The local forestry bureaucracy, the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO) in Bulacan is a product of the re-organization in 1987, and has been greatly empowered in the implementation of the NFP. The implementation of the NFP in Bulacan started in 1988 and is now in its terminal phase. The performance of the NFP was notable in that it became a source of income in the uplands. Nonetheless, this plus factor is offset by problems that are purely institutional in nature; cases of delay in the disbursements of fund, red tape, and graft and corruption. The future of the NFP ultimately rests on the continued allocation for the protection and maintenance of established forest plantations and the willingness of the bureaucacy to respond more to the requirements of the program. The direction of the present institutional structure, on the other hand, basically depends on the country's political environment.