An uneducated idea to prevent floods

The flood that rampaged over a great portion of Cebu City last Thursday was more alarming than cataclysmic. I have been a resident of Villa Aurora Subdivision in Barangay Kasambagan, this city, for almost half a century and it was just the second time that water flooded our living room. That it happened within about ten years only after the first time that we got inundated alarmed me. Is it true that this phenomenon called climate change is forecast to bring more environmental upheavals than what history has recorded?

While the city was still under water, social media, their minds perhaps angered by the suddenness of the flooding or challenged by ferocity of the water, exploded with unabashed opinions and perceptions. Many netizens taunted (I should have used the word lampooned) Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama for his recent pronouncement of targeting our city to be Singapore-like in the future. They could not just give the mayor a break! To them, Rama was but dreaming with his lofty ideas not solidly anchored on plausible ground. Others, looking at the situation more scientifically, blamed the massive deforestation of our upland area as they are converted into plush residential subdivisions.

I am not an environmentalist, whatever that word means. Neither do I have any tertiary education on forestry but i have long been persuaded to do something within my means to help mother earth and minimize the hazards brought by climate change. I write here the personal efforts i have done to in order to help stall the climate from changing.

For years, I have planted trees in my small property in the mountain barangay of Paril. There are Mabolo, Narra, Tugas, Caimito, Chico, Bugnay, Guyabano, Macopa, Nangka, Avocado and Tambis. Gamay ra man ang yuta, diyotay ra pud ang natanom. I particularly liked the Mabolo upon learning that it is Kamagong when made a lumber. Carpenters told me that in order to drive nails thru Kamagong, a hard wood, they needed to drill first thru the lumber.

This is where I differ with the groups of people we see going to the mountains to plant trees. These are noisy excursions mostly designed for personal bonding among co-employees rather than attempts to address the balding of the mountains. What we observe is that they plant the seedlings they carry and leave, post haste, for home. Nobody is assigned to take care of the plants and so, without their knowing, the seedlings just wither and die.

In my experience, plants have to be nurtured and taken care of within three years from plantation. Nurturing even includes watering them in the next few humid and dry weeks from planting. And caring means removing the surrounding bushes that tend to crowd growing seedlings. My uneducated practice has yielded an unbelievable 98% survival ratio.

Today, of the some 300 Mabolo trees I have thus far planted, many are fruit bearing. I have also harvested from the few avocado, caimito, macopa, guyabano, tambis and other trees. But more importantly, the thick Mabolo leaves, the robust Tugas and the heavy foliage from the other trees make my small farm a lot cooler to stay such that I feel having contributed, no matter how insignificantly, in fighting global warming.

While in the neighboring mountain areas soil erosions are happening, there had never been any landslide in my farm. Thank God. But I like to believe that the trees I have planted have helped to keep the soil intact.

What if, out of the 700,000 Cebu City voters 200,000 replicate my kind of personal tree planting efforts? I believe that this administration of Mayor Rama can develop a program involving Cebuanos to re-green the city and hopefully prevent a future recurrence of last Thursday’s floods.