Rico J. Puno vs. The Mahogany Gang

Our shool's molave tree. I christened thee
"Rico J. Puno"

Since becoming a bonsai hobbyist for about three years now, I have learned bits of the taxonomy of our local trees. I also dabbled into horticulture and a bit of tree surgery, which is really important in bonsai. Of course the meditative art and philosophy is there too.

Because of bonsai, I have develop a deep fascination with trees.

Dendrophilia or love of trees is what it is called, not to be mistaken with paraphilia which is the sexual attraction to a tree, kinda painful to imagine if you ask me.

Trees are fascinating because aside from providing shades, the air we breathe, and the timber we need, and gazilion other stuffs, they also have this incredible ability to convert energy into matter. 

Trees have been demonstrating Eienstinian physics way before Einstein even wrote his famous E=mc2. I don't know how the formula works but basically it means that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa. Ok, I'll leave it at that and not get into the physics, which is hieroglyphics to me.

The beauty of this tree is its gnarled trunk and the tree holes.
In bonsai this is called uro. I was reminded of the game played
by Scout and Boo in Harper Lee's novel "To kill a mockingbird"

I have planted trees into pots and watched their roots break their pots and then mature into trees yet they have not consumed the pot and the surrounding soil around them. 

Far from it, when their roots grow and ramifies into networks of secondary and tertiary roots, they push the earth surrounding them up thus creating the illusion of creating more earth.

Being a consumer and an organism that belongs to the second and third level of the food chain, I find it hard to imagine that something could grow and develop without devouring anything to fuel its growth proportional to its size. 

The donated mahogany seedlings growing rapidly.

Anyway, enough with the law of conservation of matter. 

About five years ago an organization donated mahogany seedlings to the school which was planted in the school campus. Now the mahogany seedlings have developed into fifteen foot young trees. 

The growth rate is amazingly fast and that's why mahogany became a popular timber crop trees in the Philippines. It is said that one ten-fifteen year old mahogany tree could give a return on investment rate of hundreds of thousand pesos per tree. 

Large amount of money considering they are maintenance free and the seedling are cheap and even given away. Profit is one of the reasons why many farmers and farm owners planted this tree on their lands.

But money always cost something.

It may have been economically profitable but ecologically it's a different thing. Mahoganies are alien species and invasive at that.  It is displacing our native trees.

Most of our native fungi, algae, and insects are not familiar with the foreign species hence they do not inter act with the tree. One case is what happened in Bohol's Bilar Manmade forest. Mahogany was planted in the reforestation program in Bohol and the trees developed  rapidly to become a beautiful forest. But there's one chilling discovery, there were no fungi and algae that grew on the trees, no fungi and algae means no insects, no insects means no birds-- biodiversity destroyed.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

“Molave, as a native species, has a relationship to the land, water, and other organisms that has developed over a million years. Certain fungi live with the roots, certain insects feed on the plant parts, while others pollinate the flower. Birds and mammals live along the branches and feed on the seeds. No such relationship exists for the newcomer. The result is ten hectares of mahogany in a biodiversity-dead zone. There are no birds, no insects, only a nearly dead soil due to the lethal chemicals that leak from the rotting leaves (emphasis mine). Native species are rarely found as seedlings beneath the canopy, and so, most significantly, there is no future for ten hectares of mahogany.”

Our school's narra trees.

The department should learn from this and instead give away or require schools to plant, aside from narras, threatened native hardwood trees. This will educate our pupils on the diversity of our tree species, awaken concern for the threatened species and the importance of diversity in our ecology.

A lot of things....habagat

Our eskinita becoming a river. (no these are not my motorcycles)

A lot have happened since my last post, which was about a month ago, which was about some roots on rock bonsai blah, blah, blah. Typhoon Gener entered the country bringing along rain and wind but Gener did not cause that much damage compared to the habagat (the tagalog name for the southwest monsoon) that brought with it almost ten days of non stop rain that inundated the whole metro-manila area as well as the other parts of Luzon. 

What was troubling about the flooding caused by habagat was that there was never even a storm that entered the country yet the magnitude of the damage caused by the incessant rain was comparable, if not worse than the flooding caused by typhoon Ondoy. Of course, looking back, typhoon Ondoy sort of change the paradigm of weather broadcasting when this quiet typhoon gave the Filipinos a lesson about a new way of appreciating hmmm...well...typhoons. Instead of bombarding Luzon island with hurricane like wind, to which most pinoys prepare about whenever typhoon signals was announced,  the quiet typhoon which was classified with storm signal number 1(wind velocity a little higher than an ordinary person's fart)   showered the island for about twelve hours, non stop, causing flash flood that broke the divide between the poor and the middle class (well, to the rich, the flood was just an inconvenience).

The middle class with their installment houses and cars submerged under water and the poor with their barong-barongs and their caritons floating...for just this one day, it was not only the poor who was ravaged by the typhoon. It was not only the poor who had their tin roofs blown away, their plywood walls torn; the moneyed also got a taste of nature's wrath when flood water submerged their beautiful landscaped and tiled homes short circuiting their thousand dollars worth of fancy appliances and entertainment systems.

Well, well, well...according to the experts, Ondoy was a freak of weather of some sort that was not supposed to occur again...hmmm... well, at least not in the next fifty years. so counting the probabilities...it happened again after three years, this time there's not even a wind to speak of, just water. That's why I never did like math, the figures are wrong...

Anyway, we Filipinos are waterproof and learn-proof. Yes, we did survive Ondoy, but; yes, we also did not learn from Ondoy. The garbage, the squatters along the waterways, the DPWH asphalting drainage manholes...

To paraphrase an urban planner's words:" The flooding in metro manila was not an act of God; it was the product of the Filipino's lack of...hmmmm..."

Flood

(My gulay…My English is getting badder by the day! Re-reading my last post almost gave me a heart attack. Hehehhehe...)

It was raining very hard when the class ended. I hurriedly left the school so that I could go home early. Kick started my motorcycle, revved it up and went as fast as I could only to find out that a part of the road was flooded and impassable to small vehicles like my motorcycle. I roamed around Taytay looking for a passable street but I didn’t find any. So, I went back to the school and left my motorcycle there. Last year I tried to run the motorcycle through the flood with disastrous result; the motorcycle’s air intake was submerged in floodwater drowning the carburetor. I had to shell out five hundred pesos for repair.

This time  I did the best thing to do, I walked home.

I was walking in the flood when I noticed corrugated steel bars protruding form the unfinished drainage canal. There were pedestrians and children walking and if one of them slipped they would either be barbecued (hmmmm or speared or hmmm what is that word? hmmmm....ahhhh  pierced!)...pierced by the bars or they could fall into the open canal to be carried by the current into the polluted Cainta River. Safety.

Got home to find my daughter wet and cold sitting by the door. She could not enter the house because she had no key. Her mother locked the door when she left for Cavite to visit her aunt.

Typhoon Chedeng

I heard on the news that a strong typhoon named Chedeng is coming to land in the eastern seaboard of the country. Though the ETA of the storm is still on Friday, the weather bureau has already given advanced warning of the typhoon's potential destructive power as far back as last week. The Disaster Management Coordinating Council is doing its job exceptionally considering the limitations in material and personnel. All the government agencies under its coordination are exhibiting their equipments and personnel response team on TV to assure the citizens that the Ondoy disaster will not happen again. This is a good thing and the government deserves a pat on the back for its disaster response preparedness. There are already preemptive evacuation being done in the provinces directly on the typhoon's path.

I have done a little preparation of my own by trimming the trees in our yard. I am hoping that what happened two years ago will not be repeated. I forgot the name of the typhoon whose wind power almost uprooted our duhat and caimito tree. I watched helplessly as the trees slowly leaned and the roots started to appear out of the ground. I could not do anything but watch and wait. When the rains and the wind stopped, I cut the branches and pushed and pulled the trees back to stand. I love those trees and cutting them down is not an option. Now, I made sure that the trees are trimmed so that they would not be top heavy and easily felled.

I am worried about old and termite ridden house. It’s an old house that has survived a lot of storms. But it is almost 60 years old and no major maintenance has been done on it. I do not have the funds to hire carpenters to check on the condition of its wooden trusses and floorings. I just hope that it will survive more storms to come.

It is during the storms that I pray with all the faith I could muster. Even though sometimes I seemed irreverent about God, it is during times of distress and fear that all disbelief is overcome by fear. I remember what General MacArthur said, “There are no atheists in the foxholes of Bataan.” Whether one believes in God or not, he or she cannot help but call upon his name when faced with perils.

Danger is the best motivation to praying.

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Rains, reminisicng, thunder etc...mixnuts

The first major, major  rain shower came today. According to the news, there was a typhoon named Bebeng battering Bicol Region. Bebeng was the second storm to visit the Philippines this year, an early visit may I say.  The rain brought relief from the blistering   summer heat, but it also meant the end of summer. 

When the rain subsided, I went to my regular afternoon walk. Riding on a motorcycle, I tried to climb the steep…hmmm…earthen ramp, but unfortunately, because it was wet and slippery, the cycle slipped and I fell. My shoulders hurt a little, but there were no injuries what so ever except a bruised self-esteem.    I had to cut my walking short because the rain threatened to pour again. 

The smell of the parched earth quenched by the rain… Brings back a lot of childhood memories. When I was small, I recall my mother telling me not to go outside because the smell of the wet earth could cause loose bowel movement. She would get my lola’s banyos (coconut oil mixed with herbs prepared by my grandmother) and rub my tummy to keep the cold away. My mother would also tell me to always keep my slippers on especially during the rainy season because worms would enter my stomach through the pores of my feet.

I remember sleeping cuddled between my father and my mother, the warmth of their body keeping the cold away, my father farting while we were inside the blanket…

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I had this strange experience one late cloudy afternoon. I strayed from my usual routine, and instead of walking; I rode my motorcycle cruising on   “Highway 2000”. The road was closed to heavy vehicles, so, I had the road for my own. 

Riding leisurely, I noticed that it was getting dark, but it was too early for sunset. So, I alighted from my bike and observed the sky and the cloud movements. It was amazing. The white clouds were merging with the water filled darker clouds. It’s like the clouds were battling among themselves with the darker forces (clouds) winning. What made the movements of the clouds seemed like Olympian war was the lightning show. I could see (in my imagination) the dark clouds releasing their lightning bolts against the white clouds; the white clouds were fighting back with their own lightning bolts. It’s not difficult to understand why the primitive people thought of the sky as the home of the gods. 

I was so enthralled by the show that I forgot that I was in an open field. I was a sitting duck for lightning strike. I once read that when you’re in an open field and you felt your hair standing, it is one sign that lightning is about to strike within your immediate vicinity. Your first defense is to lie face down and pray to God that you will not get hit. (This reminded me of Martin Luther and the reformation.) 

How will you know when lightning hit you? If you see flashes of light that means you’re not hit, but if you see darkness that meant you got hit. You’re either unconscious or dead.

I‘m still alive and not a Martin Luther at that…

Mushrooms sprouting, frogs suddenly appearing out of nowhere invading the comfort rooms through the drainage, keeping us awake with their croaks, puddles teeming with tadpoles, grass stalks with snails’ eggs…Some of the sights and sounds that signal the start of the rainy season.

I forgot the smell of tuyo being fried. Maybe it’s because the air is heavy with moisture that makes the smell of fried tuyo pungent but stimulating to the apetite.

Delayed Reaction

Last week it rained so hard that our street was flooded. As usual here in the Philippines, the government suspended school classes when the students were already in school. So what happened was that the students, because they were sent home simultaneously, were stranded in the middle of heavy rain and flood. The parents were fuming mad. The Department of Education blamed the Philippine weather bureau because they didn’t warn the department of heavy rains. The weather bureau replied that they can only suspend classes when there’s a storm signal and there’s no storm signal because there’s no wind, only rains. So, the weather bureau told the DepEd that the local government units can suspend classes. Local Governments units said that they were waiting news from the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC). NDCC blamed the Department of Public Works and Highway (DPWH) because they did not de-clog the waterways drainage systems and this caused the floods. DPWH blamed the citizen because they dispose of their garbage in the rivers and waterways clogging…blah, blah, blah…

To make sure that student will not be stranded the following day; all classes were suspended by the national government. Of course by then the sun was already happily shining through clear sky.

I sometimes think they do this to make up for their non-intelligence.

Sachet

One local TV network did a documentary on product packaging and the innovative way the Filipinos package their product—sachets. I mean, name it: shampoos, hair gels, deodorants, toothpaste, feminine wash, facial wash, hand sanitizers, vinegar, soy sauce, etc. it is packaged in sachets. The guy who started this packaging phenomenon is Mr. Gatlabayn the mayor of Antipolo City. He’s proud to be called the sachet man of the Philippines. Oh yeah! Oh yeah!

This innovation of packaging products in small sachets is one of the culprits in the destruction of our environment. These little sachets are everywhere: clogging drainage, polluting rivers, choking fishes, polluting soils, polluting seas…they’re omnipresent. They pop up in even the most secluded places—underwater caves, in the middle of a jungle…

I will not be surprised if the Filipinos who made it to the summit of the Mt. Everest brought along with them sachets of toothpaste or what have you.

Sachets ought to be banned.