Pining for justice: Are we missing the issue for the trees?

But only God can make a tree. — Joyce Kilmer

Baguio will not be Baguio without its pine trees, cool mountain air and zigzag roads. Take one out of the equation, and the Baguio experience just won’t add up. The scent of the pines at the threshold of the mountain city is its welcome banner.

It was really a cause for alarm when word spread that 182 pine and alnus trees in Baguio City were to be axed for the expansion of the SM department store there into a mall. Trees being wantonly axed in the name of modernization and business expansion was cause enough for red flags unfurling in green warriors’ minds. The issue galvanized the city’s environmentalists and triggered calls to boycott the nation’s largest mall chain. It even caused a new fan page on Facebook — for the trees, not for SM.

Through a memorandum signed by Environment Secretary Ramon Paje in October, DENR granted its regional office in the Cordillera Administrative Region a clearance to issue a tree-cutting and earth-balling permit in favor of SM Baguio.

But youth groups led by Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raymond Palatino urged the government to immediately revoke the permit granted to SM Baguio. Palatino handed over to Paje an appeal letter to stop the cutting and balling of Baguio’s pine trees.

Palatino called the permit “a grave environmental injustice…”

Last month, the Baguio City Regional Trial Court granted the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL)’s urgent motion for a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) on the cutting of the trees.

SM shopping centers president Annie Garcia and SM VP for operations lawyer Bien Mateo.

For his part, Sen. Francis Escudero, Senate environment committee chair, urged SM to obey and respect the court’s temporary environmental protection order.

Amid all the righteous anger and the indignation over the alleged loss of 182 trees, SM seemed in a defenseless position.

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Children and Mother Nature are sacred — you trample on them at your own risk.

But when the storm and the fury over the alleged cutting and earth balling of the SM Baguio trees subsided for some calm to filter in, one can really allow oneself to be detached from the anti-SM mob.

In fact, I let myself listen to the other side, the SM side, at last Tuesday’s Bulong Pulungan at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza. On the panel were Annie Garcia, president of SM shopping centers and lawyer Bien Mateo, SM VP for operations. They were probably warned that logs of unfavorable opinion could rain on them, but they were undaunted.

“The SM Baguio issue is no longer just an environmental issue,” Garcia said calmly.

Garcia said that of the 1,130 trees now on the SM property, 182 trees were affected to make way for the expansion of the department store into a mall — the first green mall in the north (because of its environment-friendly features, like a roof garden). Of the 182 trees, Garcia said, 86 were replanted in the SM premises and the rest turned over to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. New leaves are already sprouting from the trees that were replanted, Mateo added.

No tree has died or has been wasted, Garcia stressed. Aside from the 6,000 pine saplings that SM has planted in Baguio since 2005, she pointed out, the company has also committed to planting 50,000 more pine trees in the next three years.

Mateo, for his part, said the expansion of the current structure in the SM premises in Baguio was recommended by environment experts to help avert erosion in the area. Thus, SM has to build a restraining wall on the property to help the soil from crumbling.

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 “Why SM only?”

This was the question asked by a Baguio resident, who requested anonymity, when asked to comment on the issue. “The number of trees supposed to be affected by SM Baguio is just a small percentage compared to the number of trees already cut or balled by other entities since 2002.”

She cited statistics from DENR in the Cordillera showing that 4,078 trees have been affected by construction and other development projects within Baguio in the last decade, but not a whimper was heard from the vanguards of Baguio’s pine trees.

The records supposedly show that 1,027 trees have been cut from 2000 to 2010 in Camp John Hay alone.

“It is unfortunate that SM is being targeted at the moment when in fact many trees have been cut and are soon to be cut without the knowledge of the public,” the resident said. True, it is easy and more popular to throw stones at a giant like SM.

Some also think that “store wars,” not environmental causes, are behind the brouhaha.

“But we can co-exist,” stresses Garcia. “Since SM came into the picture in 2003, it has not killed any business along Session Road.”

“The answer, as they would say, is in the bar codes,” adds an observer mischievously.

* * *

Of the 1,130 trees now on the SM property in Baguio, 182 trees were affected to make way for the expansion of the department store into a mall. SM said all 182 trees will be transplanted.

I told the panelists that even if the other groups cut trees and were not pilloried for their sin, it doesn’t make SM’s alleged cutting of the trees right.

But both Garcia and Mateo maintain that no tree has been lost in SM’s bid to build its newest mall. The seven-story mall, they further, will create 1,000 more jobs during its construction and operational phase.

According to Mateo, SM paid P25 million in taxes to the Baguio City government last year, constituting 13 percent of the total city business tax collection, aside from P309 million income taxes paid to the national government.

The temporary restraining order covers only the earth balling of the trees, but SM management has opted to clear all legal hindrances before starting the project on the new mall.

In the meantime, may the breeze of Baguio cool down the heated debate and prune down the issue into what it really is. Store wars or a valid environmental concern? Let’s not miss the issue for the trees.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)