The Philippines: Past and Present (Volume 2 of 2)

by Dean C. Worcester

Within recent years the revenue derived from forest products has steadily increased, in spite of the fact that the government charges have been materially reduced.

The public forests of the Philippines are not sold, but are developed under a license system. Small operators usually work under ordinary yearly licenses for definite small areas. Exclusive licenses, or concessions as they are popularly called, are generally in the form of twenty-year exclusive licenses to cut and remove timber and other forest products from certain specified tracts. The land itself is in no way affected by such licenses. Merely the timber and minor forest products are included. When a lumberman is seriously considering an investment in the Philippines, he himself, or an experienced representative, should state to the director of forestry approximately the extent of the investment he contemplates. He will then be given information about several tracts which promise to answer his needs, and arrangements can be made for an experienced forester to accompany him over the tracts in question so that he may size up conditions for himself. All maps, estimates and other detailed information which may have been collected on the tracts will, of course, be placed at his disposal, and he can count upon the heartiest governmental coöperation and assistance in making a success of his enterprise. It should be understood, however, that in no case does the director of forestry guarantee the correctness of the estimates or other data which he furnishes. These are given to the applicant for what they are worth, and in every case he is advised to take such steps as may be necessary to satisfy himself as to whether or not they are correct. If the lumberman then decides to apply for a concession, he makes a formal application in writing to the director of forestry for an exclusive twenty-year privilege for the tract he has selected. His application is then forwarded by the director of forestry with recommendations to the secretary of the interior, who may approve the issuance of an exclusive license if he decides that such a course is in the public interest. For an area of more than a thousand hectares (approximately twenty-five hundred acres) proposals for bids to secure the desired privilege are published in the Official Gazette and other papers. At least six weeks intervene between the appearance of the first advertisement and the opening of the bids, but in order to give interested parties in the Philippines ample time to correspond with their principals in Europe or America, this period is usually extended to about four months. The advertisement also enumerates certain minimum requirements which principally specify the minimum amount of capital which must be invested within a certain given time and the minimum cut during the several succeeding years, together with certain requirements regarding logging and milling equipment.

Formal bids are finally submitted, and the license is ordinarily granted to the bidder who gives the best assurances of developing the tract most thoroughly and promptly. The right to reject any and all bids is expressly reserved.

In fixing the annual production there is taken into consideration, so far as possible, the amount of over-mature timber on the stand and the amount of the annual increment, with the object of rendering the investment a permanent one instead of merely permitting the operator to strip and abandon the area he holds. In preparing regulations under which the operator is required to work, first care is given to the future condition of the area, in order that the land after logging may be potentially as valuable as before, and no consideration of immediate profit is allowed to interfere. Nevertheless, the logger in the Philippines will find that in comparison with similar conditions elsewhere he will have few restrictions to contend with, and in practically no cases are these such as seriously to increase the cost of his operations. It is to permit such permanent use of the land that concessions are granted over such large areas, often consisting of a hundred square miles or even more.

As local residents are given the right to cut what lumber and firewood they may need for their private use in the territory covered by exclusive licenses, this system is not open to objection, especially as there are more than sufficient forest areas to accommodate all applicants desiring exclusive licenses. The director of forestry has the right to reduce cutting areas if outputs do not come up to requirements, so that a dog-in-the-manger policy is rendered impossible.

The local market takes about one hundred million feet per year. Only a few million feet are exported annually at present. A properly distributed cut of five hundred million feet per year would actually improve the forests.

It would seem that the policy which we have followed would meet with the almost unanimous approval of the Filipinos, but as a matter of fact it has been far from popular with them. The forest reserves have been set aside against the protest of the very people who will profit by the conservation of their resources, and would be the first to suffer from their destruction. The native press, and the Filipinos generally, have opposed the opening up of timber tracts by modern logging methods, despite the fact that such tracts are usually inaccessible to persons operating with old-fashioned equipment, and the further fact that the establishment of important lumbering enterprises means additional employment for well-paid skilled and unskilled labor, increase in the money in circulation, decrease in lumber imports and the ultimate development of a lucrative export trade. Fear of American capital can hardly be cited as an explanation of this phenomenon. Of three concessions granted last year only one, which was subsequently abandoned, went to American capitalists.

Thus far the Filipinos have made no attempt to share in the development of their forests on any save a very small scale. Of the total amount of lumber sawed in the islands only about ten per cent is produced in mills owned or controlled by them. It is useless to argue that the timber should be saved for future generations, for if not cut at maturity trees fall and rot.

So far as concerns conservation, the attitude of the Filipinos is even less satisfactory. There is abundant evidence on which to base a prediction as to the policy which they would follow in practice, if the compelling hand of an enlightened nation were withdrawn.

There is a singular indifference to the results of wanton forest destruction, not only on the part of the persons guilty of it but on that of the municipal, provincial and judicial officials who should prevent it by enforcing the law. Even when the employees of the Bureau of Forestry have laboriously gathered conclusive evidence against caiñgin makers it often proves excessively difficult, or impossible, to secure conviction. The existing opposition to forest protection springs from a desire on the part of the Filipinos to consume their capital as well as their interest, without thought of the morrow, or of the permanent advantage to their country as a whole which would result from conservation of its forest wealth. If they were left to their own devices the forests would once more blaze with caiñgin fires set by the poor peasant at the command of the influential cacique. Unfortunately that is now only too often the way in which caiñgins come to be made. The rich landowners compel ignorant dependents to make them, furnishing seed for the first agricultural crop. Under this arrangement the poor labourer runs all the risk of being prosecuted, does all the work, and often gives half or more of his crop to the cacique as a return for the seed loaned him. After the caiñgin is abandoned the cacique claims the land as his own, and through his influence in provincial politics can often succeed in delaying, or avoiding, prosecution even if detected in his wrong-doing.