InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
BAGUIO CITY -- (UPDATE - 8:33 a.m.) To residents of this mountain resort city protesting a development plan of a mall developer, the choice has come down to simply this: will they have breathing living trees or dead concrete buildings, albeit certified with a “green” design?
More than 3,000 residents marched down the main thoroughfare of the city to protest the development plan of SM Prime Holdings to build a seven-story structure that will hold a large parking lot, open air dining and entertainment facilities and other retail outlets.
SM had earlier assured critics the development will be “green” in every way by touting its distinction as the first local shopping mall to be certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) created by the US Green Building Council, the partner of SM in its building design.
The plan’s opposers, however, replied that what they want is green in nature, and not in concrete buildings.
The heart of the protest is this: to build SM’s green building, close to 200 trees will have to be cut down, and, given the state that the environment has come to here, the plan has pushed people to the streets.
Students, professionals, nuns, artists were among those who waved placards in all the colors of nature. What the placards say capture just how this part of the city feels about losing their trees.
Cut the Greed-Save the Trees. It’s not About What You Build But About What You Kill. We Were Here Before You Came-Yours the Paper, Ours the Land. Earthball Your Mall, Not Our Trees. Your Parking Lot is Not Worth Dying For. You Never Know the Worth of Trees Till You Feel the Thirst. The Trees Can’t Fight for Themselves , So Let’s Unil]te to Fight For Them.
Baguio residents are determined to save every tree they can because this Summer Capital of the Philippines is fast becoming to be known as the City of Fallen Pines. SM Baguio stands on Luneta Hill at the top of Session Road. It remains the last patch of green in a row of buildings in a confused jumble of architectural design.
The greenery in Luneta Hill is the only fresh spot in the central business district, reminding people that once this was a Hall of Famer as the Cleanest and Greenest City.
The tree-cutting permit cleared by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is being questioned by a concerned citizenry. Michael Bengwayan, executive director of Cordillera Ecological Center-PINE TREE, an organization working for environmental justice and forest conservation, spearheaded a petition online to save 43 fully grown alnus Japonica trees, 97 growing pine trees and 42 saplings to be earthballed with several to be replanted within the SM Baguio premises.
Bengwayan pointed to the lesson of Camp John Hay, when 475 trees were earthballed in 1994. He said that of this, only 17 percent or 43 trees lived and some are still dying.
Earthballed trees suffer from transplant shock resulting in water and nutrient deprivation, he explained.
He explained further: Pine trees and Alnus are taproot trees, deep-rooting. This means, the tap root is the main root that sustains the tree and that the lateral, feeder roots, coarse roots and water roots support the taproot. When you earthball, the machine used, normally a backhoe, cuts off the feeder, lateral and water roots, and the taproot is forced out. This stresses the tree, depriving it of water and nutrient and choking it off to die, slowly.
SM also plans to build a 2,190-sq.meter water reservoir that can store as much as 4,300 cubic meters of water run-off. At the rally, Bengwayan said a single mature pine tree will hold up to 400 pounds of water per year and store 40 tons of carbon in its lifetime of about a hundred years.
Because this is the last sponge also along Session Road, and a water reservoir can only hold so much water, with the pattern of increasing abnormal heavy rainfall, residents now fear water run-off which will flood the areas around SM.
They see no logic in destroying a natural garden then replacing it with SM’s planned Garden in the Sky or rooftop garden. This is heritage beauty that cannot be replaced, the sentiment went.
There is also the carrying capacity of the small hill to carry the weight of the building and the thousands of tons of soil to create the artificial garden.
Joseph Alabanza, respected urban planner of the city who is known for his campaign to pedestrianize Session Road agrees that to do this there is a need for a parking space near Session Road. But not in SM Baguio, where there is already heavy traffic and to build a major parking area here will just aggravate the problem.
In an earlier statement, he said SM apparently did not consider the contextual interconnectedness of elements in their design. A building, he explained, is not evaluated by its design alone but also its relation to the physical/environmental surroundings, the economic , sociocultural,poitical and institutional, the time of construction and the technology used.
Mike Arvisu, born and raised in Baguio and now with Kafagwayan, an organization to preserve Baguio’s environment, noted at the rally, “Their experts plan to transplant trees in the middle of summer. Any common gardener knows you don’t do that because the trees will be deprived of water.”
Baguio people are guests of the Ibaloys and Kankanaeys, original inhabitants of the city. They were indigenous people who knew their land, what trees to cut and what to preserve. They have welcomed us to rebuild and restore their land, not to keep destroying it, Arvisu said.
City mayor Mauricio Domogan said that there is really nothing the city can do because the development is taking place on private property. But ralliers said they will challenge this and said the city government cannot wash its hands of the matter.
Bengwayan said they will file for a Temporary Environmental Restraining Order with the courts next week.
Brail Degay Daupan, chairman of the University Student Council of UP Baguio, called on the city government to adopt local legislation to recall SM’s permit to cut and earthball the trees.
Retired judge and former Baguio mayor Braulio Yaranon blamed incumbent officials for not contesting an ECC granted without the prerequisite public hearings. (with a report from Arthur Allad-iw, Northern Dispatch)
