San Beda alumni green NLEX

MANILA, Philippines – The San Beda College Alumni Foundation will plant 32,000 native trees along the stretch of the 80-kilometer North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) in an effort to save the Philippine ecology from further destruction caused by imported trees.

In an interview, former Health Secretary Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan, president of the San Beda College Alumni Foundation, Inc., said they are targeting to get P50 million from their native tree planting project, “Red Lions’ Living Highways: Let’s Plant Native Trees.”

Tan said the 32,000 trees, composed of 16 native plant species, will be planted over two years at the Northbound and Southbound sides of the NLEX.

The project was made possible through a memorandum of agreement (MOA) that they signed with the Manila North Tollways Corp. headed by its CEO Manny Pangilinan.

“The MOA allows the San Beda College Alumni Foundation to plant one kind of native tree species, a total of 1,000 trees, for every five kilometers of the 80-kilometer highway as a fund raising scheme. Corporate sponsors are encouraged to support an entire five-kilometer stretch as Bedan and Manila North Tollways CEO Manny Pangilinan did,” Tan said. Trees are sold at P2,500 each.

Last Saturday, an initial 200 native trees were planted at the entrance to the NLEX just beyond the Balintawak tollgate, witnessed by successful Bedans, including Pangilinan, Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte, Jr., Louie Ablaza, former PBA bastketball stars Benjie Paras, Frankie Lim and Chito Loyzaga.

“This is a fund-raising project aimed at strengthening the San Beda College Alumni Foundation’s scholarship program. Should we succeed in our target, P30 million of the P50 million will directly go to the funding for our scholars,” Tan said.

“We have five scholars right now. We hope to have at least 100 more,” Tan said.

Smart Communications and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) became its first sponsors, enabling the planting of 2,000 native seedlings of balitbitan and dau on the first five kilometers and the last five kilometers of the NLEX Northbound.

“We are here to introduce a project that we hope would have a bigger impact on our biodiversity and the Filipino people’s collective consciousness towards trees and tree planting programs,” Tan said.

Tan said sixteen native tree species that they would plant at NLEX are now endangered, but when introduced to urban ecology would be beneficial to the Filipinos in many ways.