It’s not often that one would hear Pangasinan Governor Victor Agbayani revealing his dismay with the national government, especially with reporters around. He is perceived to be always playing it safe, lest he ruffles some feathers and the province suffer in the process. It’s still politics that dominate the games in the country after all.
 

But last Thursday (January 12), he told a few newsmen who paid him a visit that local governments are getting confused with the national government’s unstable political situation, and that this affects the implementation of development programs.
 

“There’s too much politics, too little development. How can we take off?”
 

He said that for example, the short-lived tenure of department secretaries which “is usually one and a half years is felt by the local governments.”
 

“When appointed, the secretaries call on the local officials to bare their programs but before the programs can even bear fruits, there’s a new secretary. And the process starts again. We’re always planting, never harvesting,” Agbayani complained.
 

Happily, in his State of the Province Address, the Governor revealed the reforestation program of the provincial government, under which a total of 190 hectares were reforested in 2005. The program, launched in 2003, now covers 340 hectares of watershed and integrated forestry areas and the plan is to expand the area with 400 hectares more in 2006.
 

Here’s more. In this reforestation effort, the province has distributed more than 86,000 fruit and forest tree seedlings benefiting 25 Integrated Social Forestry organizations.
 

“Under the Sagip Lingayen Gulf Project, in partnership with the UP Marine Environment Resource Foundation and the Netherlands Government, five coastal towns have completed and adopted their coastal resource management  plans or CRM. We project that thru the Linis Dayat Program, which has made the completion of CRM plans a major criteria in the search, at least five more coastal towns will complete and adopt CRM plans by March 2006.”
 

With its long coastal  areas facing the Lingayen Gulf, it is really imperative that local governments must allot some of their resources to coastal management and protection.
 

It’s nice to know that Agbayani is one environmentalist at heart.