Eagles' flight



AND then there were 12. Last Jan. 6, at 8:20 a.m., the seventh offspring of Ka Brianne and Jag saw the first light of day. The young will now join Pangarap, Bayani, Maginoo, Kapayapaan, Mia and another yet-to-be baptized sibling "born" November last year. Ka Brianne and Jag, still in their prime, are expected to produce more offspring, if good conditions warrant. Population control is out of the question. Their tribe must increase and survive. I have to warn the Population Commission though that this is not a cause for worry. Nor is there a need to debate with the Church on this issue.

The offspring produced last Jan. 6 was the 12th eaglet bred in captivity at the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) breeding center located in the watershed area of Malagos, Calinan, Davao City. The hatching of the yet-to-be-named eaglet comes almost 11 years after Pag-asa, the first Philippine eagle conceived in captivity through artificial insemination, was hatched on Jan. 15, 1992.

While Pag-asa is a product of artificial insemination, the newly hatched eagle, weighing 121 grams, was conceived by the natural mating of Ka Brianne and Jag-a milestone in the captive breeding of this endangered specie, once described by famous aviator Charles Lindbergh as the "air's noblest flier."

"This progress has now allowed the Philippine Eagle Foundation to take eagle conservation to its next level -- that of introducing the species back to its original range, " says Dennis I. Salvador, PEF's executive director. The PEF-run breeding center now has 28 eagles under its care. Two other eggs produced by natural pair Tsai and Princess Maasim are in the process of incubation.

Notwithstanding, these milestones are still clouded. For a start, PEF is saddled with funding problems. It is estimated that for each eagle under its care, the breeding center needs at least P100,000 for maintenance, food and veterinary care for one year. Since 1988, government funding for the program was already cut off and the center mainly relies on foreign grants and donations from private individuals and firms, including the multinational companies. In fact, PEF is now offering the newly hatched eagle for adoption to interested "godparents" through its Adopt-an-Eagle Program. PEF's other major concern is to expand the area of its present full-capacity breeding center. With its financial woes, I wish the day would never come when billboards carrying product brands will be attached to eagles' cages, just like in that scene from the film "A Fish Called Wanda."

But over and above the financial constraints, the bigger threats to the extinction of the country's national bird are still human follies: unabated deforestation and the continued destruction of the country's remaining forest, the eagles' natural habitat; poaching by hunters; the limited, if not outright lack of education and understanding about the needs for environmental conservation and sustainable development. Add to these the notoriety of some government agencies in the non-implementation of existing conservation laws and regulations.

I cannot imagine how the eagle, despite a successful breeding program, will survive if the country's remaining forest cover, estimated at only 17 percent, is fast vanishing. A 1988 satellite scanning map revealed that Mindanao, the country's so-called last frontier, has only 28 percent total forest cover out of the island's 2,859,780-hectare land area. The statistics are obviously well below what our country needs: at least 60 percent forest cover for a balanced and sustainable ecology, according to the experts.

The continued depletion of Mindanao's remaining forest has long been blamed for the now too-familiar yearly flooding in several of the mainland's key provinces and cities during the rainy season. As a result, yearly too, countless human lives and hundreds of millions in property are lost due to environmental related tragedies- facts that decades ago were already familiar for those living in Luzon and some parts of Visayas but unknown still to Mindanaoans.

In many ways, the extinction or survival of the Philippine eagle may also mean the survival or doom for our country. With the country now caught up in a political frenzy, does anybody care?

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ENDANGERED SPECIES TOO: Also equally threatened in the forest of political opinion are those who advocate social and meaningful reforms and changes. In the early morning of Dec. 30, lawyer Abundio Marapao, a convenor of Plunder Watch-Davao, was shot several times by motorcycle-riding men right in front of his residence in Bajada, Davao City. Luckily, compañero Abe, as we fondly call him, survived and is now recuperating following a 17-hour operation. Prior to his assassination, he also exposed irregularities involving officials of the DPWH and the now deactivated Southern Philippines Development Authority (SPDA).

Abe's failed assassination still came as a shock, notwithstanding the still unsolved Davao Death Squad vigilante killings, since the city has no prior incidence of a lawyer being gunned down, unlike the nearby cities of Tagum and General Santos. For a city known for its tough peace and order campaign, it will surely be watched if Abe's case may just become a cold statistic of unsolved crimes.

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