City cops set out on planting mission

CEBU, Philippines - They were clad in their signature blue police shirts and they seemed serious and determined to carry out the day’s mission.

But the police non-commissioned officers (PNCOs) from Cebu City Police Office were not responding to a crime in Barangay Mambaling on Wednesday morning.

The men from Police Community Relations Branch were armed that day, not with loaded guns, but with stalks of mangroves to be planted along a beach strip fronting the South Road Properties.

Chief Inspector Enrique Belciña, who heads the PCR branch, said 110 PNCOs were able to plant a total of 1,200 stalks of mangroves that day. The activity, he added, capped the celebration of the PCR Month.

Belciña said Wednesday’s mangrove panting activity was not the first time they conducted. In fact, they have planted more than a thousand stalks in April this year that he described as already having grown considerably tall now.

He said CCPO envisions to plant mangroves from the Mambaling side of the SRP all the way to Inayawan side. This project will be a joint undertaking of CCPO and of the City Agriculture Department, he added.

Belciña further said the local fisherfolk can benefit from this project since the seedlings of the mangroves were bought from the latter’s nursery at P5 each.

The fund that was used came from the coffers of the City Agriculture Office and the police’s participation was to provide the needed personnel who would plant the mangroves and ensure that they may survive. 

“After sa APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ministerial meetings), plano nato nga maka-produce ta og mga 5,000 nga seedlings aron masangkad nato gikan sa Mambaling hangtod sa Inayawan,” the police official said.

(After the APEC ministerial meetings, we plan to produce around 5,000 seedlings enough to cover the seaside from Mambaling to Inayawan.)

When the whole stretch of the shore in Mambaling and Inayawan will have been filled with mangroves, they will then expand towards the sea.

Belciña shared that before they discovered that the sea in Mambaling and Inayawan could be planted with mangroves, they have already conducted mangrove planting activities in the neighboring cities and municipalities.

But right now, he said, the people of Cebu City can benefit with their program, especially the fishermen of Mambaling and Inayawan, because these areas will soon become breeding grounds for fishes.

According to a National Geographic report, in the absence of mangroves, fishes swim directly from the seagrass beds to the patch reefs. But because they are smaller, predators catch them more easily.

It said mangroves provide important functions, including processing land-derived nutrients, serving as a buffer against pollution runoff, and filtering food for marine mammals.

The finding that mangroves serve as crucial nurseries for coral reef fish, the report added, highlights another reason to conserve these rapidly disappearing habitats. "To really sustain fish, one thing you should aim to do is conserve a certain amount of mangroves."

Though PCR Month is over today, Belciña said they intend to continue the project in the future.  (FREEMAN)