16 years later, still no justice for slain genius

Sixteen years ago this Sunday, soldiers slew botanist Leonard Co. He was researching native trees in the mountain forests of Kananga, Leyte when an Army patrol fired at him and four companions. Leonard and two of the four fell dead.

The soldiers initially reported that they ambushed Leonard’s group whom they suspected to be communist rebels. Ambushed! Leonard and the four were unarmed and in civvies. Meaning, the soldiers had lain in wait not at uniformed enemies but at civilians – a clear violation of human rights.

They wasted a genius. Leonard at the time was the country’s foremost botanist. He not only had discovered and co-studied several plant species, among those the Rafflesia aurantia, Rafflesia leonardi, Xanthostemon fruticosus, and Vaccinium oscarlopezianum. He also trained dozens of botanists, naming and describing to them from memory more than 10,000 indigenous flora.

No one has yet been made to answer for Co’s killing. The prosecution rested last February its case against the ambushers, said Chinese-Filipino civic leader and activist Teresita Ang-See. Its last witness was the first Filipino forensic pathologist, Dr. Raquel Fortun.

The defense presented one witness, then rested its case. A verdict should now be rendered.

Excerpts from an article I wrote on Nov. 16, 2022:

“Once in a hundred years a rare species appears that has a special role for all of creation.” Thus was Dr. Leonard Legaspi Co memorialized as foremost Filipino botanist, taxonomist and conservationist. Leonard scoured Luzon-Visayas-Mindanao forests in research. He fought for their protection from mining and logging. In the end, he fell in the forests he so loved.

Leonard knew the English, Tagalog and vernacular term for every endemic grass, fern and tree. He was called a genius for memorizing all the scientific names. He studied more than 10,000 species. Eight of those, he discovered. One is named after him, Rafflesia leonardi, a variety of a giant Southeast Asian flower as big as a basin. He taught young scientists everything he learned in 40 years.

Tragedy struck on Nov. 15, 2010. Leonard, 56, was examining the forest in Kananga, Leyte when shot by soldiers. “Tama na, hindi kami armado (Stop firing, we’re unarmed),” Leonard shouted before breathing his last. Slain too were companions, Energy Development Corp. employee Sofronio Cortez and farmer Julio Borromeo. Two others, state forester Ronino Gibe and farmer Policarpio Balute, lay wounded.

Leonard’s widow, Glenda, appealed for the charge to be amended to murder. After all, the 36 respondents admitted to intentionally targeting the victims. Too, they acted with the singular purpose of killing. Ballistics showed they fired close range from higher vantage.

A University of the Philippines Biology professor in 2010, Leonard was doubling as EDC’s reforestation consultant. The firm’s former chairman Oscar Lopez had tapped him to replant seedlings at the firm’s geothermal power facility in Kananga’s Brgy. Lim-ao. Leonard’s tireless replenishing of endangered species inspired EDC staff.

Leonard was a prominent figure in UP Diliman in the 1970s. He looked nerdy in thick eyeglasses, crew-cut, camisa de chino, denims, rubber slippers and with folded umbrella under his arm. Amused fellow students watched him crouching over shrubs, scrutinizing flowers and brushing aphids from under leaves.

Leonard’s scholarship amazed members of the Biology Students’ Circle. He dabbled in Literature with the campus theater troupe Samahang Mag-aaral ng Pilipino. In 1975, he led both groups and other volunteers (me included) to plant hardwood around the grassy lagoon between the Faculty Center and the tennis courts. Every week he inspected the saplings of what are now a lush sanctuary of rare birds and butterflies.

Environment activism and campus turbulence disrupted Leonard’s studies. Yet despite his unfinished undergrad, he was consulted by younger professors on their researches. He later breezed through master’s and doctorate programs.

Daughter Linnaea Marie was 12 when Leonard was killed. He had named her after the beautiful twinflower Linnaea borealis of Scandinavia and Alaska. Linnaea and Gladys buried part of his ashes beneath his tree in the UP woods. The rest they brought via bus, Navy boat, tricycle and trek to the Sierra Madres in Palanan, Isabela – to blow away in the forest where he discovered his Rafflesia.

*      *      *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8 to 10 a.m., dwIZ (882-AM).

Follow me on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/Jarius-Bondoc