A reminder from God

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

 “Children are a reminder from God that the world must go on.”

The quote is from Baguio boy and thinker Jose “Peppot” Lambinicio Ilagan, a fellow newsman who went ahead due to kidney failure. It’s a life-time medical inconvenience I’m coping with, making me realize life is beautiful, despite your having to now and then throw up unanswered questions to the sky.

In-between shots of gin, we were discussing “Eco-walk”, a basic and simple environmental program of having kids trace their source of water, from the faucet to the pipes and ending at the Busol Watershed. There, they drink water from the source and then plant a tree seedling to the foliage.

 Eco-walk gave me, Peppot and other fellow Baguio journalists, together with Baguio barangay captains, a refreshing respite from the daily grind. We simply could not refuse guiding kids excited to trace where their tap water comes from. The hikes were our mandatory exercise, allowing Peppot and I to sweat and to delay the eventual impact of diabetes, which is kidney failure.

Peppot, my brother, mentor, immediately saw the power of kids in convincing tree-cutters and fire-bugs from destroying Baguio’s remaining pinestands and water sources. The kids’ daily presence in Busol somehow reduced the number of illegal logging and fire incidents in what remains as one of the few water sources of Baguio.

The program galvanized the city’s barangay captains to action, initially by building the lecture shed and then training themselves as guides under Manny Flores, who committed what remained of his life to the program.

Truly, why deny a child the right to know where his water comes from? For Busol, we adopted the “muyong” system of forest management effectively done for centuries by the Ifugaos to ensure year-round water for their rice terraces.

More often than not, a child who grew up in Baguio after the 1990 earthquake has experienced “Ecowalk”. So did thousands of visitors from all over the country who adopted their own kids’ programs patterned after that of Baguio’s.

As seen in the program and in recent events, the power of kids cannot be over-emphasized. When that pine stand beside the Baguio Convention Center was threatened to be destroyed and turned into four high-rise commercial buildings called “Baguio Air Residences”, kids of Baguio Pines Family Learning Center wrote then President Glorai Arroyo, asking her to save the trees.

To permanently save the pinestand, city mayor Mauricio Domogan offered to have the city buy it, together with the Baguio Convention Center that the Government Service Insurance System initially agreed to sell to the city.

Recently, however, GSIS had a change of mind, saying the area’s land value has appreciated and offered the lot at a higher price.

Kids rom Baguio Pines Family Learning Center went into letter-writing, this time asking President Rodrigo Duterte to convince GSIS to save the pine lot so the “City of Pines” won’t turn into a misnomer.

First to respond to the pupils of school principal Leonila Bayla was GSIS president Jesus Clint Aranas who said the GSIS property “will remain the home of these beautiful trees”.

As Peppot had reminded us: Children are a reminder that the world must go on.” – e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.