RESOLUTE IS Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales in his stand to prevent any and all attempts to cut trees along the stretch of MacArthur Highway in his beloved Mabalacat City.
“Heritage to be protected, to be preserved for the next generation.” Boking calls the trees, mostly hardwood acacia.
Providing a natural canopy of green, the trees serve as the lungs of the city, absorbing noxious gases from the vehicles that ply the highway and emitting needed oxygen, as any elementary student would know.
The trees absorb and store water too, helping prevent flashfloods along the highway.
But no, the Department of Public Works and Highways would not take any environmental consideration in its single-minded thrust to widen MacArthur Highway, Mother Earth be damned.
Already, the trees – those in Angeles City too – have been marked X for felling.
The Save the Trees Coalition that fought – hammers and thongs – the DPWH and its tree-killing cohorts: the City Government of San Fernando, the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources – are again ready to do battle for the Mabalacat trees.
Mayor Morales will make the big difference here.
In the City of San Fernando, Mayor Oscar Rodriguez made like a bordello madame, readily opening to the thrusts of the DPWH, going even to the extent of damning the trees along MacArthur Highway as clear and present danger to life and limb, and therefore necessarily expended for some greater good.
“You can replace and plant millions of trees. But you cannot replace human life. We are talking of the safety of people here. The priority will be the safety of people. And we will stand by our position.”
So was Rodriguez quoted, committing what logicians call the fallacy of false dilemma. No absolute either-or proposition between trees and humans, Attorney Rodriguez.
PamCham for its part called for the “total removal of all trees along MacArthur Highway,” as reported in SunStar Pampanga in August 2010.
“The old trees along the path of the road widening must go so that the people would reap the economic and social benefits from a good road infrastructure.” So was PamCham quoted. Again, fallacious premises leading to flawed, if not stupid conclusion, there.
So was irrationalized the massacre of the trees along the San Fernando stretch of MacArthur Highway, vainly unjustified in a so-called “urban tree planting project” undertaken by the triumvir of tree-killers that targeted the planting of 1,500 saplings but actually accomplished only half, right along the road – but farther from the shoulder – where the old trees were felled.
Still, Mayor Rodriguez hailed the project as “beneficial to the public…will help in filtering carbon emissions that are harmful to the people’s health.”
Two years hence, but for the dozen or so young banaba fronting the DPWH regional offices, not the slightest trace of the rest of the 750 saplings existed.
Urban tree nothing. That’s what the DPWH, Rodriguez’s government, and PamCham clearly accomplished there. Do they care?
And then came the floods to San Fernando, the areas where the acacias were cut especially noted for turning into virtual seas at the height of the inundations. And so it shall be every rain-laden typhoon that shall visit the city.
With a lull in the tree-cutting frenzy in the City of San Fernando – the STC staying the axeman’s hand in the Baliti area – DPWH found new targets in Angeles and Mabalacat.
Really, now, what’s the drives the DPWH in this nil-arbor mania? Pnoy’s matuwid na daan?
It’s the exact opposite – the crooked way – if we believe some self-styled pundits.
As I have written in some piece two years ago, it was:
“CASH-UALLY envelopmental rather than socio-economically developmental that may be the actual driving force in the widening of the MacArthur Highway and the massive tree-kill it entailed.”
Simply, trees along MacArthur Highway serve as a bounty. The bottom line in their killing and in the widening project is money, money, money.
Read here your take from the Colorado Trees Coalition at www.coloradotrees.org:
‘Urban Forests Can Extend the Life of Paved Surfaces.
The asphalt paving on streets contain stone aggregate in an oil binder. Without tree shade, the oil heats up and volatizes, leaving the aggregate unprotected. Vehicles then loosen the aggregate and much like sandpaper, the loose aggregate grinds down the pavement.
Streets should be overlaid or slurry sealed every 7-10 years over a 30-40 year period, after which reconstruction is required.
A slurry seal costs approximately $0.27/sq.ft. or $50,000/linear mile. Because the oil does not dry out as fast on a shaded street as it does on a street with no shade trees, this street maintenance can be deferred.
The slurry seal can be deferred from every 10 years to every 20-25 years for older streets with extensive tree canopy cover.’
By killing the trees along MacArthur Highway, the asphalt pavement will be deprived of the protective canopy, the heat of the sun roiling the aggregate which gets easily loosened by the vehicles, thereby pockmarking and ultimately carving the pavement.
Knowing how the roads here are made the same way as Cabalantian’s puto-seco, they all the more get easily destroyed.
So?
The DPWH will have to make more frequent asphalt overlays.
So?
The DPWH will have to get more funding, both general and supplemental, for non-stop road maintenance.
So?
The DPWH will have to bid out contracts for the road rehabilitation and maintenance to contractors.
So?
The favored contractors will have to gift the DPWH, and maybe the local government, with the requisite por-diez-por-diez-por-diez-porciento package.
Indeed, resolute is Mayor Morales in his stand to prevent any and all attempts to cut trees along the stretch of MacArthur Highway in his beloved Mabalacat City.
If only for the fact that his city is named after the hardwood balacat tree. And Mayor Morales takes after the hardness of that tree.
