Evergreen

There is something about Diliman that keeps me returning.  It is not the academic upheavals, or rubbing elbows with the demi-gods. The sublime attraction goes beyond fame or intellect, and rests at the belly of one human need we tend to overlook these days - trees.

Growing up at  the heart of Manila, where every spot of earth spawns the construction of  apartment buildings, I was robbed the joys of running under a foliage of evergreens at a young age. Sure, there was a dense shrubbery across the house - a place we used to call gubat-gubatan.  We had a great time picking Yellow Bells and use its milky sap as Elmer's glue substitute, or tapping the old Karmay tree with a long stick for its sour berries.  I even had a chance to pull out the filaments of Santan flowers and taste their sweet juices, and run towards the house after being chased by the octogenarian landlady when seeing her garden being trampled.

These were some of the fading memories kids like Baby Lenin might never get to enjoy.  At least we had more trees back then - in schools, in little patches of open spaces, along the sidewalks and at the middle of four-lane boulevards.  But the more we embrace our dreams of progress: behemoth malls that swallow up everything, stick-like skyscrapers competing for the attention of clouds,  concrete open grounds where anecdotes of human failures glare everyday, and farms transformed to poor-man's subdivisions, the less we tend to see our lives ahead. Death hastens with each tree fallen to the ground and it's a sad and tragic tale that we only get to realize our fault when the city gets deluded by torrents of mud water. 

The landlady across our old house passed away and in less than a year, her garden, the gubat-gubatan we knew was no more.  Trees were fallen and converted to firewood, the scorched earth was dug and Gabi tubules planted in places where Santan flowers once bloomed. They too disappeared after being consumed by the jobless house tenants. The anguish of seeing my patch of paradise senselessly destroyed (a fact I denied when it was still around) would haunt me for years that in Grade Six, I commandeered every available space outside the house and turn it into my own garden. Opposition had won over, unfortunately. I was bribed by anime and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Many years later, my heart still weeps when I see wooden trunks abandoned on streets. I still regret doing nothing - not even a eulogy - when the centuries-old Balete trees in Balara were cut down to give way for the Katipunan expansion.

Seeing  tree saplings planted in pot-sized concrete blocks - to make it appear the local government is doing something for the planet leaves me befuddled.  The same goes for the declaration of a total log ban just when green advocates are being gunned down at the frontiers.

For these reasons,  I try to keep the memory of gubat-gubatan alive, as a fitting reminder of what we have lost, and hopefully we could find again. Same goes for this odd behavior of feeling the bark of old trees - and treating them like esteemed grandparents, when I get to find one while walking down the streets.  Finally, there's this vision - of a watershed enclosing the city:  A time, when the hills of Sierra Madre are covered with trees again and the streams flow with clear water everytime it rains.  

 
I still live in dreams.

And each time I hear news that make these dreams closer to reality, I never hesitate to embrace what is left of the memory.

MANILA, Philippines—Weeks after ordering restrictions on commercial logging to help prevent flooding caused by severe deforestation, President Aquino has ordered students and government employees to plant 1.5 billion trees on 1.5 million hectares of public domain under a national greening program.


Under Executive Order No. 26, President Aquino required students identified by the Department of Education and Commission on Higher Education and all government employees to each plant at least ten seedlings a year.


To be covered by the greening program are forestlands, mangrove and protected areas, ancestral domains, civil and military reservations, urban areas under the greening plan of the LGU’s, inactive and abandoned mine sites; and other suitable lands.


“Part of the plan also seeks to integrate the various tree-planting initiatives such as the upland development program, Luntiang Pilipinas (Green Philippines) and similar activities of the government and the private sector,” Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said in a statement.

 - Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Photocredit