Greener side of me.

August 15, 2009

Our local government planned a road widening project along McArthur Highway. But in order to accomplish the said project.. they need cut 4000+ trees. yep. four effin’ thousand! okay. first, i don’t think there is a CURRENT need for road expansion.. i’ve been passing through that road everyday for 14 years now(because of schooling)and i don’t remember experiencing any massive traffic.. well atleast not until they start cutting down the trees because this past few months they are closing a lane or 2 and because of this traffic is building up. second,it’s very intruiging that this project was approved by DENR. i mean DENR should’ve been the first one to oppose the project because if i’m not mistaken their mission/so-called mission is.. to protect the environment. And cutting down trees can’t be classified as protecting the environment. Hmp. good thing there are many environmentalist here in our province and ask help from some NGOs. They even painted human figures to those trees that aren’t yet(and hopefully won’t be) cutted.  here’s a pic.

I’ve read this article from a magazine and i was really moved by it. i almost cry while reading it. i wanna share the article to all of you guys so i typed it. i hope you’ll appreciate this article as much as i did.

Killing ‘em softly by Nestor Cuartero (From Philippine Panorama August 9, 2009)

They were killing us softly it hurt so bad. The cutters, with neither heart nor mercy, came early in the morning, dressed in faded blue shirts and stinky demins, armed with ordinary bolos, axes, and a ruthless attitude. I shuddered at the thought we were going to be attacked again in the guise of beautification.

I looked at myself, my narrow trunk and slim frame from which grew some branches decked with beautiful, green leaves and tiny yellow-orange flowers. I thought I looked good and served my purpose well enough.

Birds and bees sat on my branches, making music, multiplying among themselves. The same cutters, who double as street sweepers, rest under my shade in high noon.

On my trunk, one worker had pinned a big nail last summer on which he usually hangs his home-cooked lunch. It hurt so badly when he buried the nail on my tender flesh.

I cried. I bled, but he ignored, never felt it. He and his friends continued taking their sweet lunches under my protective canopy, unmindful of the pain I was going through.

When the cutters came that early morning in our line of young trees serving Quezon Avenue in Quezon City, we shivered and wondered why it was happening again. Many of us had not been warned we were due for another trim, an unwanted haircut. We could have delayed the flowers from blooming, halted more young twigs from sprouting.

Wasn’t it only a few months ago when some local government unit mercifully cut us up, from waist up, all the way to our branches and twigs, leaving us only with a few little branches, usually just two, in the uppermost areas?

All that merciless, mindless cutting without let-up made us look like a row of erected, armless skeletons on the highway. With only a bare trunk on the ground level, we felt and looked pathetic, pitiful, hopelessly ugly, robbed of our pride and dignity, our crown of leaves and flowers.

They cut us up when we grow branches within their reach. When we grow our branches taller towards the sky that is our only protector in this highly polluted city that we didn’t choose, they also mangle us. They claim we are a threat to some view that we obstruct, to electricity from flowering freely in the city.

The cadena de armor growing lush on my feet cried to me moments before she was wiped off from the chicken fence that served as an island in the middle of the street. For no reason, she was killed, just when she had grown lots of roots and crawling branches and flowers all over the place. I thought she, with that thick foliage of green and pink, was beautiful sight. How could anyone not see all that basic beauty amidst a smoke-filled, filthy city?

What are we to do? It baffles us how these people can treat us this shabbily when we do nothing but enhance their way of life. When we don’t prettify the scenery, we protect their environment.

Underground, we hold unquantified gallons of water that prevent or reduce flooding. Above ground, we offer shelter, fruits, and flowers. When will they realize that tall, big, shadowy trees make a city greener, more beautiful? That we help a city breathe more freely?

My relatives in other parts of the world, such as those in Singapore and Vancouver, tell me they’re allowed to grow and glow in the middle of thick pavements, amid fast cars that line those cities. It isn’t that way in Manila. They hate it when we grow big, when we spread our wings on their cemented roads, with lots of shade.

If only those humans could turn us into bonsais, we’d probably be out of here. My neighbor, the slim eucalyptus next to me, however, tells me the regular trims should make us feel somewhat lucky. Those people could have simply uprooted us without rhyme or reason and no one would have cared or raised hell.

They could say we were going to be balled, relocated to another destination. But, many of us die even before we get balled.

Our fate isn’t important to anyone. A series of uprooted, healthy old trees, some as old as 100 years, never merits any inquiry unlike sex videos.

I looked down on the heap of chopped branches, twigs, leaves and flowers gathered on my feet. I could see them withering, lifeless and in sorrow. I die with them.

My branches are my children. Humans should know and respect that. They got their inspiration to draw their so-called family trees from me.

Branches emanate from various sides of my trunk. Each branch, like a son or daughter, is nurtured to fruition. What would humans feel if any of their children is cut off, not allowed to groom and bloom?

I die slowly each time the cutters come and aim at me and the rest of us their heartless, glistening war tools.