ON a hot day in Manila’s month of May, after the shock of seeing huge trees suddenly cut down on Quirino Avenue and threatening to continue on to Roxas Boulevard under permits from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the DENR’s convoluted defense comes down as illogical. First of all, because it explains why the Berong Nickel Mine is allowed to cut 26,000-plus trees in Palawan to be replaced by 2,661,700 seedlings. This is another matter altogether with its own fallacy. It does not address the hundreds of mature trees on Quirino Avenue, whose ruins are now the ghastly sight of environmental crime in the city that needs trees more than expressways.
But let us take the equivalence that DENR explains, which is one tree permitted to be cut down to be replaced by 100 seedlings of an indigenous tree. It does not compute because one tree has photosynthesis at work to produce oxygen and mitigate air pollution, lower temperatures, give shade, and make a cityscape livable and attractive. A seedling, even a hundred seedlings, does not. These replacement seedlings that will be planted God knows where, God knows how, will not be equivalent to one tree. Moreover, even if the seedlings are cared for the three years that the DENR demands, they will not replace the one tree, not now, not for decades, certainly not in our lifetime. This equivalence, which includes Earth-balling trees which we have not ever seen done before, is useless and should be abandoned. If there is a law that mandates it, the law should be changed; if it is a presidential decree, it must be amended. It does not correlate that one tree is equivalent to 100 seedlings, period.
The next thing to note is that the trees were executed for an expressway which will be coming from another expressway, use up San Marcelino Street, Quirino Avenue and continue on to Roxas Boulevard toward Intramuros and the Anda Monument (Salex). This is the heart of Manila that will have its trees executed and be uglified by concrete expressways apparently planned by big business (in this case San Miguel) with the cooperation of the Toll Regulatory Board, and of course, DENR and presumably the Department of Public Works and Highways without public consultation and prior knowledge.
The rationale is that it will be for the new San Miguel Airport, a building in Bulacan, which is hardly on its first stage but there is the rush to build the expressway for it. By the way, should not this mega airport use trains to bring people in and out of it like knowledgeable, efficient and considerate airport managements around the world do? Trains demand a higher investment, have a larger public to serve and have a slower return. But San Miguel, through its expressways, concentrates only on car owners, not the general public that cannot afford cars. Faster return and more profit there, seems why.
And by the way, we are still waiting for the Big One, the earthquake that could take down those expressways, which would be a monumental catastrophe as there are now so many of them, in the heart of the city, and there is no guarantee that they will hold. When the last big San Francisco earthquake took place not too many years ago, the expressways became killers as they fell to pieces and involved such difficult rehabilitation later.
The point to note in all of the above is that public space, public property and public use of them is being compromised by the rampaging public-private partnerships that our government is so quick to enter into without public consultation, logical thinking or the thought of public good. These government agencies seem to be in regulatory capture to big business. What big business wants, they give. One can guess why. There is ignorance, there is venality, and on the part of the proponents, there is the profit motive.
So, wait for the assault on Roxas Boulevard, the marring of Intramuros and the insult to the Anda Monument. All for private gain.
