Seeing ghosts

SLEEPY HALLOW becomes MacArthur Highway.

Or so some unnamed Sun-Star Pampanga “sources” would have us believe with the “…seemed (sic) like ghostly images… painted on the decades-old acacia trees along the highway, 'scaring' motorists and commuters.”

“The painted images on the trees not only look like ghosts but are quite scary, too. They are potential hazards and are eyesores. The area has become ugly and it’s dirty. What is the DENR doing about this?” Thus, screamed Sun-Star Pampanga’s banner headline last Friday: “Motorists to DENR: Stop vandalism of trees”.  

Ugly? It is those very spectral forms that stayed the axeman’s hand – okay, the DPWH chainsaws and bulldozers; spared the trees, and preserved the natural beauty of the place.

Dirty? It is those very trees that transform the suffocating oxides of carbon emitted by thousands of passing, gassing vehicles into clean, life-giving oxygen. That is some purification process without any attendant dirty, harmful by-product. 

Vandalism? Save the Trees Coalition’s Cecile Yumul has the perfect take on this. In her facebook account she wrote: “To each his/her own conscience. The white human figures which saved the trees from death when the fight for the lives of these trees started is now referred to by anonymous (?) persons as vandalism. Yet, when the trees were chainsawed to death in a matter of minutes, they never saw anything wrong with it. When an X mark for death is placed on the trees, it is alright and not vandalism? 

One more hirit in the Sun-Star Pampanga banner story: “’We should respect the trees and the right of the people of this city for a clean and orderly environment. Instead of wasting money on paint and vandalizing trees let us just save the money and plant more trees,’ one stall owner, along Telebastagan said on conditions of anonymity.”

So, where was this stall owner in all those times when thousands of trees were being felled? His concern over the money “wasted” on paint smacks of the Iscariot’s lamentation over the cost of the perfume poured by Mary of Bethany on the feet of Jesus.

John 12:4-6 (New King James Version) thus: “But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”  This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it.”

Come to think of it, Sun-Star Pampanga’s faceless sources sound like those same people that said the trees were dangerous to motorists and commuters, aye, that called them “killer trees” and therefore should all be cut.

Seared forever in the mind of environmentalists – particularly the STC – are the local government of the City of San Fernando and the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PamCham) as active participants in the wholesale massacre of some 2,000 trees along the MacArthur Highway perpetrated by the DPWH with the acquiescence, if not the instigation of the DENR.       

For the record though, the DENR this time stood by the side of the environment: “…the information office of the DENR said the “ghosts” were the handiwork of environmentalists and sees no harm to the trees with the paintings. They, however, said personnel were already dispatched to clean the area and look into the posters reportedly nailed on the trees as it is prohibited by law.”

The posters were stapled – not nailed – to the trees. The group that posted them in celebration of Independence Day, the Youth for National Development, ever mindful of the least harm they could inflict on the trees.

Sleepy Hallow for the MacArthur Highway.

Could it be that those who had had a hand in the murderous spree of the DPWH and its unconscionable contractors along that road are now being haunted by the silent victims of their heinous crime against the environment?

Seeing the ghosts of the felled trees in those stickman drawings made with    completely harmless water-based paint?

Getting so spooked that they had to hide under the protective blanket of anonymity?

Afraid of ghosts of their own making. Afraid to own up to what they are saying. Afraid to stand up to their own (un)doing. Else, run the risk of being haunted by the living.  

No simple Ichabod Cranes chased by the Headless Horseman there. Three times the cowardice, what we have are yellow-bellied, craven, chickens.

Mataloti.