Wasted Resources! Let’s Revive Paper Industry By Organizing Tree Farmers

Two weeks ago, Mlang, Cotabato born businessman Rey Billena, whose parents were co-teachers of our father and mother, told me about his new business of supplying paper products, especially bond papers, to government offices.
Every year, he said, he supplies about 300 tons of paper products to the different government offices.
But here is the cruel joke.
Rey imports his paper supplies either from Thailand or China.
While the Philippines used to be a major source of timber, the indiscriminate cutting down of trees has reduced the country into a major importer of wood products.
These wood products include Paper, Veneer and Plywood.
What makes this a sick joke is the fact that most of the paper, veneer and plywood that we import from China comes from Falcata trees harvested in the Philippines and bought by Chinese traders, processed in China and sold back to the Philippines.
To end this cruel joke that we have inflicted on ourselves, Rey and I agreed to start an advocacy to revive the Paper Industry of Mindanao by organizing the Falcata farmers into a corporation or cooperative.
The intent is to re-establish a Filipino Farmer-owned Pulp and Paper Mill to make sure that the Tree Farmers of Mindanao are not exploited by unscrupulous Tree Traders.
It will also ensure that the Philippines need not import Paper, Veneer or Plywood say in 10 to 20 years.
To implement this vision, I will have to link up with the Mindanao Development Authority, an agency which I previously headed.
As Chairman of the Mindanao Development Authority, I initiated the move to organize the Tree Farmers of Mindanao, a task which did not come to fruition when I decided to make a bid for the Senate.
So now, we have an almost Complete Value Chain – We have the Tree Farmers and we have the buyer and a huge demand.
All that is needed now, is to link up the tree farmers and the buyers by establishing the processing facilities to be jointly owned by the Farmers and the Buyers.
To realize this, government must come in with the needed funds to establishing the Paper and Pulp Making Facility.
Perhaps, the Maharlika Investment Fund could be a source of funds to revive an industry which will not only make life better for our tree farmers and the country less dependent on importation but more importantly promote the planting of industrial trees in the highlands of the country.
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!