The Sound of  Running Water

Names and faces both fami-liar and obscure fill the pages of Forest Faces, a joint publication of the Ateneo de Manila-based Environmental Science for Social Change and the United Nations Food and Agricul-ture Organization. Their varied stories give a prism-like view on the current state of Philippine forests and related issues, from recycling to global warming as well a throwback to nature poems by the national hero Jose Rizal.

Not surprisingly, Rizal is not the only Jesuit-educated person represented here, but his poems written during his exile in Dapitan (a still redolent Mi Retiro) and boyhood at the foot of Mount Makiling defy categorization under any religious order.

Mi Retiro in particular makes a refreshing reacquaintance, here done in translation by the national artist Nick Joaquin – who himself once studied for the priesthood – and states a rare case for the contemplative mood of lyric, romantic poetry, albeit in free verse: little has changed on the aspect of the sea, and the lines could still apply to that elemental force of nature, full of beauty and dark power lying in ambush in the reader’s subconscious.

And so the sound of running brooks runs through this random reportage, which more than makes up for its rather unimaginative writing style with the bravado of its ideas: in a time of artificial food shortages and runaway oil prices, the beleaguered citizen at large would be well served with alternative ways to cope with the crisis, any crisis, not least in a manner that would yield psychic rewards.

Among the more familiar names: the musician Joey Ayala who looks forward to the day that he will no longer have to sing about the monkey-eating eagle as an endangered species; Manila archbishop Gaudencio Rosales recalling his days as prelate of bucolic Malaybalay in far off Bukidnon; architect Ning Encarnacion spreading her advocacy of bamboo as housing material both cost-friendly and cool; retired basketball player Vince Hizon as head of a company that recycles plastics and styrofoam; sociologist Randy David narrating trips to his hometown of Betis with his granddaughter and lamenting how the sweetest chico tree of his childhood was buried by lahar; wildlife biologist aka batwoman Nina Ingle telling of her work with the fruit bats; former environment secretary Elisea Gozun discussing the ‘disconnect’ between government, the private sector and nongovernment organizations; Datu Michael Mastura ruminating on the peace process on the banks of the river Pulangi in Cotabato; and Silliman University president Ben Malayang waxing nostalgic about his boyhood in Mindanao where he was comforted by the sound of the kalaw and differentiates between the pine forests of Valencia in Negros Oriental and the dry savannahs of Siaton in the same province.

Though some of the stories here are told by the relatively obscure this doesn’t mean that they lack relevance. For starters there are the three Maryknoll students who reside in Marikina and in their tender age already worry about the day they will remember how green was their valley; the non-government worker and ex-communist cadre whose murder remains unsolved to this day; the Makati office yuppie who learns to savor the patches of green in the concrete jungle and so appreciates more the campus of her undergraduate years; the T’boli elder whose face graces the book cover like the memory of hunger; the lumad who soldiers through the disorienting big city and the urban poor wife who must scavenge the neighborhood dump to get by.

There are clear, nearly awe-inspiring photos of assorted bodies of water, notably the Pulangi river against which backdrop poses the peace negotiator Mastura. Dizzying shades of green accompany Ingle in her forest workplace, a black dog not far behind. The light trips fantastic in Encarnacion’s bamboo digs, the breeze too persistently blowing.

A bit jarring, however, are the usual introductory messages as if the book were a souvenir program, though we understand the presence of Environment Secretary Lito Atienza whose attire is itself the message: floral shirt neatly tucked in, and with a cellphone holder clipped to the belt.

Writing too is a bit uninspired and basically safe, almost like a classroom-style Reader’s Digest-like project, perhaps to make doubly sure that the message of advocacy would not be lost on the reader. Besides this is not a literary tome and never pretended to be one, which is why the Rizal poems stand out all the more.

Also, it seems that the writers were not credited, or maybe they were too self-effacing that they didn’t bother to be named.

A volume as comprehensive as this might still lack for possible additions who could provide new angles to the issue at hand: why not, say, an interview with the Los Baños-based band Makiling Ensemble whose world music can also best capture the sound of running water? Or photos of the jungles of Basilan and Jolo, where terrorist bandits have sought refuge all these years? Or a first person report by the gardener caretaker of the Makiling Botanical Gardens, who once related the story of Pedrong Tubo, the man who disappeared in a water pipe up in a ridge only to surface days later in a trough downstream, unconscious but alive and none the worse for wear after his unusual journey in the mystic mountain?

Of hopes there are many, so long as there are people who remember the forest. How great it would be if regrets were few but that is sadly not the case in an age of creeping urbanization. But the city or country dweller should still revel in the presence of this book, however unwieldy, as if it were the song of the cicada raging against the neon night, or the croaking chorus of frogs after a sudden rain as heard from the elevated platform of a train station. How these little mercies can also be accidental blessings.