By Leonardo Micua

 

IN this intense hot weather, we look up to the trees to shelter us from the piercing rays of the sun. Although the whiff of wind is still hot and humid, a person could feel a soothing relief albeit temporarily if he is under the shade of trees.

But sadly, some of the trees that had sheltered us for many years are now gone, vanished from our memory. Many of these were systematically cut down to give way to developmental projects of politicians that could help perpetuate their memory when they were already gone or for some other reasons.

Incidentally, while these politicians promised to replace those trees by planting hundreds if not thousands of  trees in the mountains as required by the DENR, nothing can replace those trees that once gave us soothing relief to our whole body when the nature had gone berserk, such as this intense heat wave that we are experiencing today.

Relative to this, I posed on Google Search as to how many years a tree sapling would grow into a full grown tree. What I got were volumes of answers online and  and the simplest answer I liked most was “in as little as 10-20 years under optimal condition”.

If that is true, then it’s more than the nine years tenure of a local official in the Philippines, granting that he’s lucky enough to be elected by the people for three consecutive terms.

So, if a politician cuts down an almost century-old tree in his first term of office for a purpose, he or she should put in his conscience that the benefits that can be derived from the new trees that would be planted in their stead, can be had in 10 to 20 years.

That’s exactly the length of time we have to wait before we can go and take shelter from the intense heat of the sun under those trees, granting that some of us were still alive in 10 to 20 years.

Let us not go far. Look at the premises of the provincial capitol of Pangasinan. The trees that are still there may now be breathing their last because of a policy to redesign the capitol ground. So, dear, take a selfie with those trees  now while they are still there.

Few years before, hundreds of centuries-old trees were cut down to give way to the widening of the Manila North Road and various other national highways of Pangasinan.

Question: Were those trees that were planted by contractors in the mountains of Pangasinan as required by DENR before it granted them tree-cutting permits, still alive till today?

May be not anymore, because in most cases, after planting the tree sapling, the planters never returned  to water the tree during hot, humid summer.

It is simply that while planet earth continues to heat up, we in Pangasinan are cutting full-grown trees just at the drop of a hat. And we think we can replace them easily.

Wrong.

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We were told  that new DPWH projects will begin shortly after the 2024 Bangus Festival. Kudos to Mayor Belen and DPWH. Dagupan is ending its flood problems soon without drawing a single centavo from its coffers.

Mayor Belen Fernandez told me that the funding for the flood mitigation project to remedy the perennial flooding problem in front of YMCA in Dagupan City is now available in the General Appropriations Act. 

This is another good news to the city. Director Ronnel Tan kept up his promise to Mayor Belen that he will help mitigate flooding in Dagupan, which many other city administrations before Belen’s attempted to do but failed. 

Unlike during the previous Lim administration that built a big flood gate on Rizal Street in Barangay II and III upon the recommendation of the old Flood Mitigation Commission that project was never used at all even for single flood season in the downtown area.

As gleaned from a letter of city hall to the Sangguniang Panlungsod, that project was placed on special audit by the Commission on Audit at the request of Mayor Belen who questioned its use because after it was constructed, it became a mere white elephant. Sayang ang pondong ginamit dito.

Take note of this contrast in management. During his time, Brian did not use his imagination to call on officials of the national government for projects. Belen, on the other hand, aware that the seven-man opposition would not be generous to give her the funds for infra projects, begged for projects from the national government and succeeded.

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