Memorial tree to honor forest guide

BENCHWARMER
Ramon Dacawi

A tree seedling will be planted in the forest next week-end to honor a young security guard who, for years, quietly guided children in their exploration of Busol, one of Baguio’s few remaining watersheds.

The ritual planting will be in memory of Andres Realina who was killed while on duty last Monday afternoon. He was pinned down by a mature pine that got uprooted and fell on a makeshift guardhouse inside Busol while the city was bracing itself for the brunt of super typhoon Juan’s fury.

Realina, who grew up in Aurora Hill near the watershed, was buried early Saturday afternoon at the city cemetery after a funeral mass at the St. Vincent Church. He would be 36 on Nov. 30. He is survived by his wife Marianne, 36, and children Cherry Anne, 12, and Michael Angelo, 10. Their third child, Donald Allan, who was afflicted with Downs Syndrome, died when he was two.

City councilor Peter Fianza, who led a team from the city disaster coordinating council that responded to a distress call from Busol following the accident, suggested the memorial tree planting. The practice of planting memorial tree to help grieving families cope with mourning was initiated by the late Baguio newsman Jose “Peppot” Ilagan. On July 16, 1997, he led fellow journalists to establishing a memorial patch at the watershed in honor of those who perished in the 1990 killer earthquake that hit Northern Luzon.

Realina’s tree will grow beside those earlier planted in honor of departed media practitioners of Baguio within a remote portion of the watershed. As guard of Interlink Security, Realina was assigned to secure the integrity of the water being generated by the watershed and the pupmps and other fixtures of the Baguio Water District inside Busol.

Seeing the need for volunteers, he acted beyond his duty and served for years guiding children in their exploration of the water source and tree-planting and –tending activities under the city’s Eco-walk environmental program.

Every summer, the diminutive and quiet forest guide would supervise and monitor the work of youth assigned to tree-tending and fire lane establishment within Busol under the city’s Special Program for the Employment of Students with the Department of Labor and Employment.

Last May, he led members of the CDCC in their replanting of precipitous areas of the watershed which were burned by three fires last February. Andy enlisted as a private security gurd in 1996m, two years after he finished his course in general radio communications operator at the Baguio Colleges Foundation.

“I met him at the EPZA in Loakan where I was working in a company and he was assigned there as guard,” Marianne recalled. Andy served under two security agencies before transferring to Interlink, security provider for the city hall and the BWD. The shift proved practical as he was assigned to Busol, a walking distance from his home at 32 Brookspoint, Aurora Hill.

The watershed assignment provided forest therapy, aside from a greater sense of purpose in his teaching kids how to plant and care for trees. “We were with him in some of those tree planting sessions,” his widow recalled during the wake. Next week-end, it will be Marianne’s turn to lead their two kids in planting a tree in memory of their dad..