Thou shall not cut those trees
A BLAST from the past with an impact in the present is this piece titled Trees that appeared in my Zona Libre column in the March 11-17, 2001 issue of The Voice.
POOR Apung Feleng Lazatin! One of his more lasting legacies to the Kapampangan has been grabbed by this upstart senator Loren Legarda-Leviste.
Traversing that canopy of green along the Baliti stretch of the MacArthur Highway, I was pleasantly surprised to see installments of Joyce Kilmer’s Tree on mini-billboards interspersed with the fully-grown acacia trees. That pleasant surprise turned to bitterness at the last billboard proclaiming the site as a Luntiang Paraiso with the Hon. Loren Legarda-Leviste as chairperson. Giving the impression that the trees there are part of a Leviste project. Such gall!
I have no quarrel with Leviste. I only wished she had the grace, the humility and the honesty to give credit where credit is due. It would not take much – at the most one more mini-billboard – to cite the planter and nurturer of those trees, the grand old man of Pampanga politics himself, Don Rafael Lazatin, once governor of Pampanga, mayor of Angeles City, member of the Batasang Pambansa. (Father to former Angeles City Mayor and now returned Congressman Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin of the 1st District, if I may now add.)
Come to think of it, but for the few who can still remember, not many really know who planted those acacia trees along MacArthur Highway.
It was in the early ‘70s, I still recall, that Apung Feleng planted those acacia seedlings. The tree-planting frenzy in government was yet to germinate as a Marcosian idea. It was a most pleasant sight to behold the grand old man hosing those young plants from a water tank in late afternoon, day after day after day. Until they turned to saplings and matured as mighty trees providing a cool oasis of fresh air to the weary traveler.
The City of San Fernando can perhaps declare that pocket of green as a living memorial to Apung Feleng in recognition of his contribution to the greening of this land. As well as to prevent Legarda and other credit grabbers from arrogating unto themselves the deed of others.
Some green foliage in the new seal of the City of San Fernando caught my attention. The city council resolution explaining the new seal cited this as a commitment to the care of the environment.
Looking at the continuing destruction of trees where buildings are being built, I think what ought to have been included in the city seal – to be truthful – is a tree stump. The city government is plainly indifferent when it comes to the caring of trees.
Of course, money does not grow on trees. It comes out of infrastructure projects. It isn’t hard to understand that, Mayor Doctor Rey Aquino.
Elections are a bane to trees. It does not take too much intelligence to know that nailing billboards, posters or placards on trees inflicts damage to the plant tissues. This is altogether similar to puncturing human skin, damaging tissues and exposing them to infection.
Of course, the idiots who continue to nail election – and even commercial – materials on trees do not have the minutest intelligence. Thus continuing to afflict all sorts of damages on trees.
There ought to be a law against this practice. But then, who make the laws but those whose election materials are pinned on the trees. Real idiots.
xxxxxx
POOR Apung Feleng Lazatin, all the more today. His legacy of green is being threatened to obliteration by the Department of Public Works and Highways with a road-widening project.
Such gall for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to issue a permit to cut those over-30-year-old trees numbering to a hundred 100 or so!
Such gall for the Regional Development Council 3 to lend its name to such environmental despoilation!
Such gall – and hypocrisy – for the business people to push for the degradation of nature even as they profess their advocacy for the environment and the development of the region!
Shame on all of them. As I cannot hope for a tree to fall on them just to die – the tree, that is – so I could only wish that they be cursed by nature’s gods.
POOR Apung Feleng Lazatin! One of his more lasting legacies to the Kapampangan has been grabbed by this upstart senator Loren Legarda-Leviste.
Traversing that canopy of green along the Baliti stretch of the MacArthur Highway, I was pleasantly surprised to see installments of Joyce Kilmer’s Tree on mini-billboards interspersed with the fully-grown acacia trees. That pleasant surprise turned to bitterness at the last billboard proclaiming the site as a Luntiang Paraiso with the Hon. Loren Legarda-Leviste as chairperson. Giving the impression that the trees there are part of a Leviste project. Such gall!
I have no quarrel with Leviste. I only wished she had the grace, the humility and the honesty to give credit where credit is due. It would not take much – at the most one more mini-billboard – to cite the planter and nurturer of those trees, the grand old man of Pampanga politics himself, Don Rafael Lazatin, once governor of Pampanga, mayor of Angeles City, member of the Batasang Pambansa. (Father to former Angeles City Mayor and now returned Congressman Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin of the 1st District, if I may now add.)
Come to think of it, but for the few who can still remember, not many really know who planted those acacia trees along MacArthur Highway.
It was in the early ‘70s, I still recall, that Apung Feleng planted those acacia seedlings. The tree-planting frenzy in government was yet to germinate as a Marcosian idea. It was a most pleasant sight to behold the grand old man hosing those young plants from a water tank in late afternoon, day after day after day. Until they turned to saplings and matured as mighty trees providing a cool oasis of fresh air to the weary traveler.
The City of San Fernando can perhaps declare that pocket of green as a living memorial to Apung Feleng in recognition of his contribution to the greening of this land. As well as to prevent Legarda and other credit grabbers from arrogating unto themselves the deed of others.
Some green foliage in the new seal of the City of San Fernando caught my attention. The city council resolution explaining the new seal cited this as a commitment to the care of the environment.
Looking at the continuing destruction of trees where buildings are being built, I think what ought to have been included in the city seal – to be truthful – is a tree stump. The city government is plainly indifferent when it comes to the caring of trees.
Of course, money does not grow on trees. It comes out of infrastructure projects. It isn’t hard to understand that, Mayor Doctor Rey Aquino.
Elections are a bane to trees. It does not take too much intelligence to know that nailing billboards, posters or placards on trees inflicts damage to the plant tissues. This is altogether similar to puncturing human skin, damaging tissues and exposing them to infection.
Of course, the idiots who continue to nail election – and even commercial – materials on trees do not have the minutest intelligence. Thus continuing to afflict all sorts of damages on trees.
There ought to be a law against this practice. But then, who make the laws but those whose election materials are pinned on the trees. Real idiots.
xxxxxx
POOR Apung Feleng Lazatin, all the more today. His legacy of green is being threatened to obliteration by the Department of Public Works and Highways with a road-widening project.
Such gall for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to issue a permit to cut those over-30-year-old trees numbering to a hundred 100 or so!
Such gall for the Regional Development Council 3 to lend its name to such environmental despoilation!
Such gall – and hypocrisy – for the business people to push for the degradation of nature even as they profess their advocacy for the environment and the development of the region!
Shame on all of them. As I cannot hope for a tree to fall on them just to die – the tree, that is – so I could only wish that they be cursed by nature’s gods.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 9:30 AM
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