Baguio's pine trees: treasured heritage or mere obstructions?

Dozens of pine trees are about to killed in Baguio. 

Whoever sits in the various offices of power at the Baguio City Hall, they find it very easy to mention the Benguet Pine as one of the city's most treasured heritage, along with its invaluable contribution to the city's beauty and healthful climate - yet at the same time, whoever sits in the various offices of power at the Baguio City Hall, find it too easy, when nobody's looking, to consider them as mere obstacles to concrete monuments to misdirected initiatives that at times defy logic and common sense. In the last couple of decades, three of these inanities stand out: 

The concrete pine tree that replaced the live one at the top of Session Road (mid 1990's).

The murder of 182 trees by SM City Baguio for a parking building (2012).

The felling of 700 trees and destruction of water sources at Mt. Sto. Tomas (2014).

 And today, the year 2021, while the city grapples with a still continuously raging pandemic, decades-old majestic Benguet Pine Trees that up until backhoes, which between SM and the Ampatuans to me now is a symbol of death, started mowing them down in the last couple of weeks, welcomed travelers entering the city from Kennon Road or Marcos Highway are on death-row for a road-widening project. 

Not too long ago, pine trees have already been sacrificed in the construction of the flyover and makeover of the rotunda at the Baguio General Hospital. Apparently, the powers-that-be aren't done defacing Baguio yet.

Our attention was first called by a social media post by Fr. Gerardo Costa who runs an orphanage and wellness center located along Gov. Pack Road who was bidding farewell to their tree-lined driveway, apparently also in the way of the road-widening project.

The driveway of Home Sweet Home Orphanage and Help Center.
Image courtesy: Dave Leprozo, Jr.

Here's an interesting anecdote: before the construction of the flyovers at the BGH rotunda, the traffic in the area was not as bad as it is today, despite those flyovers. 

The project aims to alleviate the traffic situation in the area. The thing is, I pass there often, and save for those two days in a year during the annual Panagbenga parades, traffic very rarely builds up in that area. In fact, I usually take that route from the Burnham Park area on my way home to the eastern part of the city when I want to avoid the bottleneck in front of the Baguio General Hospital BECAUSE THERE'S NO TRAFFIC there. 

But, the backhoes are out, trees are being felled, and by the time they're done, another 36 majestic pine trees will have been murdered. Because today, sadly to the powers-that-be, they're not the city's heritage, icons, contributors to its beauty and healthful climate. No, today, they're in the way of their idea of progress. They're in the way of a multi-million-peso contract. They're in the way of of Baguio's journey towards hyper-urbanization and urban decay. They're in the way of another "misdirected initiative of energetic lumbermen," as Daniel Burnham referred to them in the early 1900's in his plea to succeeding administrators of Baguio to protect the natural environment or the city he designed. 

A backhoe executing Benguet Pine Trees.
Image courtesy: Dave Leprozo, Jr.

The dead lay on the side of the road.
Image courtesy: Dave Leprozo, Jr.

In a few weeks' time, instead of towering, beautiful and fragrant Benguet Pine trees, those entering Baguio will be welcomed by a wider, albeit harsh, soul-less concrete road. Is that progress?   

The current administration campaigned on a promise of a "breath of fresh air." As the city loses yet dozens of air-cleansing, life-giving and -protecting trees, can't help but wonder what kind of fresh air we're taking about here.