EDITORIAL - In memoriam of trees

Robert Reyes, the so-called running priest and reported leader of an advocacy group to save trees, came all the way from Luzon to Cebu to tie white ribbons around old and decayed acacia trees set for cutting. The trees are to be cut to give way to road widening. More importantly, they are to be cut as a safety measure. Some of them recently fell on houses but luckily injured no one.

Tying white ribbons around trees is not going to save them. Reyes knows that. So unless his only reason for spending precious time, money and effort is to get himself in the papers and on television, Reyes should just have stayed home and prayed that maybe people will learn to appreciate trees more and come up with better ideas to protect trees in a more meaningful and achievable manner.

The old trees lining the roads to the south in Cebu may be beautiful in their majesty, and valuable as silent witnesses to history. But life moves on and as it progresses, along comes certain changes to which everyone and everything must learn to adapt to and abide by. Tough decision may need to be taken. In some of those times, a tree may need to be sacrificed.

A tree felled, or a hundred, can be a painful thing. It can even be dangerous and life-threatening in the long run. But trees have been felled, in their hundreds of millions throughout history, and yet man is still here. And so are the trees, inspite of all that have fallen. And that is because in everything that is bad there is always an inherent good.

For every person who merely chooses to make noise, or simply goes through the motions like tying ribbons, there is another who does something more pragmatic, like planting trees and actually taking care of them until they mature. It is these people who have a clear understanding of what they want and how to go about getting it who make the cycle of life work for everyone.

Even if, by some fluke of the universe, tying ribbons actually work to stay the axe against the old acacia trees on the Cebu south road, how long do you think these old trees can withstand the onslaught of time, knowing that they are all more than a century old? Eventually they will have to go of their own accord, and the only thing the ribbons, or the one who tied them, can brag about is a postponement of an eventuality.

But the bad thing about just letting these trees die of their own accord, aside from the serious danger they pose in case they fall and cause death and destruction, is that they simply die and that's that. Nobody is going to plant another in their place as a memoriam. And the good things that had been planned along with their programmed cutting would have gone someplace else for the benefit of others.

The good thing about programmed cutting, which is what Reyes is protesting against, is that everyone is aware of what is going on and what is going to happen. And because of such awareness, the pros and cons have certainly been weighed and measured. In such a case, when a tree has to go, its going will have to be repaid with perhaps a hundred others planted in its name. And life goes on.