I am not advocating the planting of trees all over Baguio.
I am advocating the planting of PINE TREES all over Baguio.
No offense to all other tree lovers. But I’m not trying to attain food self-sufficiency. I am not motivated by biodiversity. And I am not trying to produce lumber. Like I said, almost ANY tree can grow in Baguio. I don’t want to plant almost any tree, not even the ones that grow fast and easy. I want to plant—and I do plant—pine trees. Only.
You will eat guavas from your own guava tree three times in a year, or maybe even less. For the most part, you will just want to LOOK at your guava tree. For some, especially those tracing their roots from the lowlands, it reminds them of “home.” Well, then, you shouldn’t have any problem understanding why I want to plant pine trees—for that very same reason.
If I ever moved to the lowlands, I will plant pine trees there too. Of course, they will keep dying and i'll keep trying--and people will wonder why I persist. They will mock me, for the same reason I wonder why they insist on transforming their part of Baguio into their own little “pocket lowlands.”
When I was editor of the Gold Ore in the 1990s, Fil-Estate developers boasted at a press conference, after they bagged the contract to “re-develop” Camp John Hay, that they would “add more color” to Camp John Hay. They would introduce other tree species to “break the monotony of an all-pine tree landscape.”
Without creating a scene or any commotion, I quietly slipped out of that press conference. I grabbed a taxicab to the Main Gate of Camp John Hay—the one across Hotel Nevada which was still in ruins then. I walked up along Sheridan Drive (you won’t even remember that road if you’re not from Baguio) and based on the “development schematics” that I saw at that press conference, I sat before a thick stand of tall pine trees that I knew for sure would not survive the impending makeover.
I spent a few moments with them, touching their rough barks, sniffing the sweet-smelling resin that oozed out of them. One of them dropped me a small perfect pine cone which I picked up. I was glad those trees couldn’t talk because if they could I know they would have asked, “isn’t there anything you can do to save us?” There was none—nothing that could be said, nothing that could be done. So finally I just softly said goodbye and cried.
All those trees are no longer there today.
In fact if you go to Camp John Hay today, it’s no longer there. They just keep calling that place Camp John Hay.
Fil-Estate was successful in introducing “more color” to the landscape. But they were not--they will never succeed in preserving those pine trees—they will all eventually die.
They don’t understand pine trees. Pine trees don’t like other trees. There are no mixed pine tree forests anywhere in the world. There are only pine forests, period.
Benguet pine trees know their identity. More than some iBenguets themselves, even.
That’s what makes it so difficult to grow pine trees “in captivity.” Haven’t you noticed you can only grow pine trees in clusters, but not individually? The reason is “bio-social”—clusters of pine trees protect one another. If you want to grow a single pine tree, you must be willing to guard it with same amount of protection it would have gotten from a forest. So you can grow one, but it’s a mission.
Pine trees live long and will build a lifetime relationship with you where both of you must stick around. You just don’t plant a pine tree and run. They will not go for a one-night stand. You must be committed to it. A pine tree is not cheap.
That’s why I plant pine trees. I’m not going to eat my pine tree, and I will not feel bad that I can’t. I will not begrudge the fact that these pine trees don’t bring me any economic benefit. I want these pine trees to grow for themselves, not for me. I want them to grow for Baguio.
So I am not looking to join a peer society of plantitos and plantitas. I don’t want to build a Japanese garden or my own private little ecopark. I just want to rekindle the comeback of this species that attracted me, and many others, to come to Baguio in the first place, and made me swear to never ever leave this city--except horizontally in a pinebox.
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