The first time I laid eyes on the Veteran Tree, looking upward and downward, the feelings that overcame me were of dismay and mild disgust. “Mild” because this was not the first time that city authorities did something to further the uglification of our beloved but already benighted and blighted Baguio.
The Veteran Pine, as it is called, is nothing more than the Benguet pine (pinus insularis), but what sets it apart from the thousands upon thousands of pine trees still standing in different parts of Baguio and outlying Cordillera is its age of over 100 years, its having survived the carpet bombing of the city during World War II or, as the landmark beside it states, “defying time, fire and the elements.”
And yet by the unthinking—the more appropriate word is stupid—act of cementing the base of the tree, its survival is put in jeopardy. For how can the roots of the tree absorb the moisture and the rain that feed the tree? Elementary, Watson, we feel like telling the insensitive city officials. What is the Bureau of Forest Development for if it cannot care correctly for a historical tree?
If the tree has feelings, we know these would consist of a sense of loneliness, “missing the contemporary neighbor pines felled long ago by the ruthless axe man,” according to the landmark. Yet who is being ruthless by cementing the base of the tree and covering up its roots? Hello, Garci, can you assure us of one million votes from the city’s residents and visitors to clamor for the removal of the offending cement base?
What incensed me was how a sense of what is aesthetically pleasing and pleasurable has continued to elude our government officials, particularly the ones in Baguio. Where were they when they were taking their undergraduate humanities classes when the topic was striking a balance between people’s needs and enhancing, not destroying, the environment? We only have to be at the veranda of SM City Baguio to see a panoramic view of a city that looks like a monumental cemetery with occasional, I’m tempted to say, token trees to break the monotony of houses and buildings.
There is one real estate developer in the city known for bulldozing pine trees and other trees that are in the way so home and commercial lots can be apportioned. The rationale is the people who buy these lots will plant trees anyway to make up for the felled ones. The logic is ill logic. In other places like Bali in Indonesia, structures are built around trees even if it means that the house is not a perfect cube or rectangle. Truly our officials have a lot to learn in terms of nature conservation, and the learning must be accompanied by action or else we throw away our natural patrimony.
What should be done is for developers to take a meditative stroll in the remaining groves in Ambuklao and Camp John Hay, the veritable lungs of the city. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, a naturalist and author of the classic Walden Pond, “Strange that so few come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light—to see its perfect success.”
Baguio City is approaching its centennial in September this year. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one of the activities to commemorate the event is a celebration of the long-living pine trees around us with picnics under their shade followed by enthusiastic tree-planting by every hundredth man, woman and child?
If the Baguio Country Club could start a 10,000-tree planting as part of its observance of its own centennial and to make those who complain about the fading scent of pine eat their words, why can’t City Hall find the political will to save the Veteran Tree from imminent rot and collapse, and let a hundred pines bloom?
Mabuti pa si Kermit the Frog. He sings an anthem to the color green: “But green is the color of spring / And green can be cool and friendly-like / And green can be big as an ocean / Or important as a mountain / Or tall as a tree.”
Photo of view from SM City Baguio mall by KIMI L. FERNANDEZ
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