Tree planting

Before anything else, let me express “from the bottom of my heart” a Happy New Year to all of you dear Freeman readers. Apropos to wishing you great blessings this coming year, I hope to echo a kind of  new year’s resolution.

In the higher years of my law studies, the president of our school graced one occasion. He became active in the school again, because Martial Law has closed the Congress he was serving as a representative. Quoting from a philosopher whose name I have forgotten, UV President Eduardo R. Gullas, spoke of three things to perpetuate one’s name – siring a child, writing a book and planting a tree.

The first is a no-brainer. I had a happy experience as regards the second. While falling in line to board for a flight out of Cebu, recently, someone approached me asking if I had revised a book I wrote in the late 70s, Marine Laws and Ship Business. That gentleman has become a ship officer and has crossed the proverbial seven seas and he quipped that my book was one of his favorite texts in his studies!

But, the third should concern all of us. Planting a tree is the demand of modern times. It is a way of contributing to the cause of mother earth. If we must search for a thing to resolve to work on, this is the very subject matter. Actually, I wrote on this topic not to long ago. The dearth of response alarmed me. Why would so few people react if their numbers were compared to some other issues I dwelt on?

Thinking that my exposition on it was out of sync with the greater mass, I, today, have yielded my remaining space to a young mind, hoping that this issue can trigger the kind of massive reaction it truly deserves. Here it is.

As I continue my father’s words, I hear the water dripping from the faucet in the bathroom. I hear the steady buzz of the electric fan’s busy blades bringing coolness to no one in particular in the room. And I thought, we are a generation that wastes our resources! I am bringing these scenarios to the fore because these are the things that we see everyday. Many writers have talked about acquiring effective habits of successful people. But there are some habits that we should inculcate if we want to influence a generation that minds and mends Mother Earth. Talk about making a lasting imprint with minimal carbon footprint. So I turn off the water faucet, and switch off the electric fan. And my mind wanders to my father who is, at the moment, in his beloved farm planting young Mabolo saplings.

I’ve never really minded my father’s weekend tree-planting activities until I read some interesting statistics. The list was long, but the top three statements were alarming. 1.) The Philippines has only 18 percent remaining forest cover; 2.) The island of Cebu has a forestland of 142,000 hectares. Only 7,100 hectares, a mere 5 percent, is covered with vegetation. The remaining 134,900 hectares are currently barren; 3.) Cebu City has zero percent forest cover.

The only good thing that I can think of is this: we always start counting from 0. From that zero percent forest cover or 5 percent vegetation, we could increase that statistic in the years to come. And we can do that with one seedling at a time, at any one plot of land at a time. It takes much conscious effort, just like turning off the water faucet and electric fan when not in use, to take a seed and rest it inside Mother Earth’s womb. But with that effort comes a reward that is beneficial for the future generations. Only until then can we say we are a generation that takes care of our resources.