MANILA, Philippines — A former solon has proposed the use of public land for Jatropha propagation to help ease the country’s need to generate power and energy.

Herminio Teves, former congressman of the third district of Negros Oriental, said that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has recently declared a total of 14.2 million hectares of public land as “alienable and disposable.” He suggested that this land could be used to plant Jatropha, a tree that could be used for the production of biodiesel. “Jatropha will grow anywhere in the Philippines, even on logged over areas and public lands,” he stated in a pamphlet he wrote concerning how to address climate change.

Teves said that if the public land will be utilized for Jatropha propagation, it will yield some 99.4 billion kilos of seeds, which could produce around 25 billion liters of Jatropha raw oil as bunker fuel to fire the country’s diesel power plants.

He said that propagating Jatropha in areas of the country with available alienable and disposable land and existing diesel plants will help in the need for power supply of the said areas.

When planted with Jatropha, Teves said that La Union, which has a public land of 111,646 hectares, can fuel its 215MW Bawang Diesel Plant. While, Zamboanga del Sur, which has 316,648 hectares of public land, can fire up its 55MW Southern Philippines Power Corporation and 100MW Western Mindanao Power Corporation.