ROSARIO, Agusan del Sur, Philippines – The Campacam and Manobo tribesmen in the mountain communities have started to be productive as they ventured into massive planting of rubber, jatropha, and fruit trees in an effort to uplift their living condition.

The Campacam, which comprise about 60 percent of the over-all total population of this town and in Bunawan, Agusan del Sur, are seen to benefit from the initial 60,000 budded rubber trees planted at their 100-hectare ancestral lands here.

It was learned that are eyeing another 100,000 seedlings of rubber tree to be planted in their ancestral lands.

“Our brother natives also intent to plant rubber trees in their new identified 10 hectares highlander’s burial site, just to maximize their area,” said community relations officer Reverend Fr. John Gelio-ano.

The natives intercropped rubber with banana and other agricultural products.

People in the four village communities at the Bunawan Brooks in Bunawan town also planted 13,476 seedlings of various fruit trees like durian, lanzones, rambutan, mangosten, and pomelo.

It was also learned that PhilSaga Mining Corporation (PSMC) assisted the Campacam tribesmen such as ground preparations, planting, maintenance, training, and technical assistance.

PSMC president retired Army Colonel Samuel G. Afdal has mobilized the company’s social arm, the Mindanao PhilSaga Foundation, Inc. led by its president Dr. Victor P. Salvado, to plan more livelihood programs for the more than 10,000 highland villagers in the two towns for the betterment of their living condition.

Meanwhile, in the southwestern part of the province, Manobo tribesmen are also set to plant Jatropha or tuba-tuba, a shrub touted as the great hope for bio-fuels, in wide areas of their community.

The planting of Jatropha is now initiated by the heirs of legendary leader Datu Hawodon Tagleong Coguit who died in 2006 at the age of 113, which made history in leading his people united and intact for over a century.