Planting Season

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- We are in the middle of the environment month of June and the skies have dimmed. It now rains everyday although previously, the weeks after the shocker election that has dumbfounded many a voter like yours truly, were hot as if we were in the lowlands.

The southwest monsoon, if you observed, has started blocking the morning sun with clouds coupled with early drizzles. Last week, I felt the drizzle drop lazily but continuously in many midmornings before turning to rain in the afternoon.

Rainy day sceneries take me back to primary school when teachers organize tree-planting trips for grades four to six. I do not know if those teacher-organizers were called environmentalists then, because I do not remember hearing that word during my elementary school days.

I cannot recall brightly where the tree-planting activities were held, but the areas were somewhere away from school because small jeeps that were technically called “auto calesa(s)” had to ferry us schoolchildren to the sites.

If the planting sites were at Busol, then those times could have been the first “eco-walk” ever organized. As far as I can recall, I joined tree-planting trips three times. And just like the recent mornings, Pine Tree planting season then was also wet.

Activities held outside school campuses like street parades, field demonstrations and farm tours indeed catch the interest of schoolchildren. The difference, however, is that schoolchildren in tree-planting trips decades ago were paid 30 centavos for each tree that is planted.

That means, the public school teachers have sourced out funds for the environmental activity that they organized. That makes me wonder too if our teachers today are allowed to look for financial sources for projects such as tree-planting.

Fast forward to high school, the months of June and July remained as the season for planting trees in open spaces, including the water sources surrounding the Ambuclao and Binga dams operated then by the National Power Corporation.

I remember NPC’s tree-planting activities during the rainy months when the government corporation took advantage of high school and college students who were on vacation by paying them P10.00 for each tree that is planted.

Such activities tell us that there was environmental awareness among elementary schoolchildren, high school and college students in the past. It also reminds us that the government then had simple reforestation projects that were more effective and very doable than the multi-million peso environmental activities it implements today.   

Despite a National Greening Program, LGU ordinances and environment codes that are supposed to be followed, no order from concerned authorities imposing a total ban has been issued.

Perhaps, due to the effects of modern science and technology, and the needs of the present time; people are destroying the environment in numerous ways faster than replacing and sustaining it.

We are now in a situation where more fully grown trees are cut faster than having them replaced because trees take 30 to 50 years or so to grow and mature.

Proof is the cutting of some 43 fully grown Pine Trees and six Alnus trees inside a 3.1-hectare property owned by Moldex in Bakakeng Central that was duly permitted in exchange for “development”.

The tree-cutting permit paved the way for the construction of a condominium building that formed part of the overall development plan for the property purchased sometime in the 90s.

But Moldex is not alone. The DENR in the past also permitted SM Baguio atop Luneta Hill to cut or earthball around 180 trees in exchange for a parking lot and an extension building. Because of the tree-cutting permits, Baguio will soon be known as a “city of buildings”.

In fact, I read from a newspaper report that even the DENR-CAR regional director Ralph Pablo said that after due process, the agency can issue a tree-cutting permit “within one week” from the date it was applied for. OMG, I think my tree-cutting application for a single tree was an exemption. It was issued six months later.

The cutting of 49 trees by Moldex and how the lumber was disposed drew public attention and visibly irked councilor and incoming Vice Mayor Faustino Olowan who moved to invite Moldex and DENR officials to the council.

I understand, the city council is moving for amendments on tree cutting guidelines and rules on how to dispose the lumber produced after tree-cutting permit issuances.

In the meantime, while the DENR and the city have yet to reconcile their differences, we are losing fast our trees in Baguio that was once upon a time called “City of Pines”.