An environmentalist by heart Getting to know Michael Bengwayan
Bengwayan was regarded as the prime mover in the January 20 mass rally against the giant SM Prime Holdings Inc., to expand its mall and earth-ball some 182 trees with its tree cutting permit issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources through Secretary Ramon Paje.
Bengwayan is a journalist, an environmental specialist, and agriculturist. He is in a post Ph.D. in Public Policy at the JFK School of Public Policy, Harvard University. Holds a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the University College of Dublin, Ireland; a Masters Degree on Environmental Studies ain Leuven University, Belgium; a Masters Degree in Rural Development Studies at the Benguet State University, La Trinidad, Benguet; a Bachelors Degree in Agriculture; and a Diploma in Advanced Journalism in Kalmar University, Swededn. He has 20 years experience in journalism with Press Foundation Asia and in several national dailies and local newspapers. Had working stints in India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Ireland, Tanzania as agriculturist, environmental officer and writer.
He authored two books entitled: Intellectual and Cultural Property Rights of the Indigenous and Tribal peoples of Asia and Dam the Rivers, Damn the People, San Roque Dam.
Going back to the forum, I heard him say: “we know that the environment matters but we do not want to do something to protect it; we do not want to act”.
The audience seems to ponder on his idea and fell to intent listening while taking down notes as he continued his speech on nature.
In his speech he said that “the impact of climate change is not a funny matter that is why we have to do something that is tailored to saving what is left in our environment and I do not understand why a very simple idea like that is hard to grasp by our political leaders”.
“If we do not give importance to the environment, let’s look at the cultural and medical importance of it,” he added.
At the end of the forum, I heard him say: “I was born an environmentalist and I make paths for others to follow”.
In a short interview after the forum, he related that he was born and raised in Baguio City.
“I am a communitarian environmental worker, journalist and writer and educator”, he said.
His wife, Grace Taguba just finished her doctorate study on immigration. His eldest daughter Abigail is the secretary general of the Cordillera Peoples’ Alliance. She graduated from the University of the Philippines. The second is Grail, a teacher at Saint Vincent, Baguio City. Phyllis his third child graduated medicine at the Saint Louis University. The only boy Michael Jr. is a graduate at SLU with a degree in Information Technology while the last, Frances, is taking up BS Biology at BSU.
“There is nothing more that I like doing than caring for the earth. I love planting. I love working to see to it that soil is not wasted away by slides, erosion and mudflows,” he said. “Whether I plant trees, crops or anything that has roots reaching out for the soil, I like feeling the soil in my hands knowing how much it does to make the world live.”
According to him, “the soil is treated by most people as worthless.”
“They walk on it, tramp it, dump their trash on it, dig and throw it away, build buildings and choke it. People bomb it, kill all that live in, yet at the end of the day, the food they eat, the clothes they wear, the things they use and need, come from Mother Earth’s unrecognized, disrespected, uncared soil,” he said.
Bengwayan is likewise the Director of the First Cordillera Pine Tree Festival slated December 17-18 in 2011 at the Benguet State University Grounds and in Longlong Communal Forest, La Trinidad, Benguet attended by almost 5,000 participants.
The event highlighted seminars and symposia on status of pine forests in the Cordillera Administrative Region, indigenous forest conservation practices, environmental laws, pine tree researches, forestry strategies in pine tree management and conservation.
He said the intention of the event “is that the Benguet pine tree (Pinus Insularis) should be recognized for all its contributions to the people and land of the Cordillera region. My goal is to celebrate through a community-participated, educational, re-creative and entertaining festivity with relevance of the pine tree and to spark widespread propagation, sowing and planting of pine trees to the Cordillera region, in particular, and to the country, in general. The long-term goal is to widen and in-depth support education, conservation, research of pine trees”.*
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