Shame on You!

SHAME ON YOU!

By Anton Antonio

August 5, 2015

About a decade or so ago, the acacia trees along McKinley Road in Makati City leading to Bonifacio Global City were targeted for felling because of a road widening project.  The residents of Forbes Park and Dasmariñas Village together with their Local Government Unit (LGU) vehemently protested which caused the project to be scrapped.  The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) even suggested that the acacia trees be “balled” (meaning: the process of excavating trees as an option to cutting them down) and relocated somewhere else.  But the Forbes LGU and the local residents turned the suggestion down so to this day those mighty acacia trees stand where they are proud and grateful to the people who cared enough to protect them.

This doesn’t seem to be the case in the City of Manila… particularly the Manila Army and Navy Club area.  As many as 31 of the 44 trees in that property were mercilessly felled because of an on-going “restoration” project.  The developer, Oceanville Hotel and Spa, was tragically permitted by the DENR to cut down these trees, some of them decades to century old, as if they were good for nothing. This is just so heart-breaking when there remained other alternative courses of action… these tress could have been “balled” and transferred to serve other human beings who care enough to have them transferred to their backyards.  To the mindless guardians of the environment at the DENR and the soulless owners of Oceanville Hotel and Spa… SHAME ON YOU!

Thoughts to promote action…

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REFERENCE:

Gmanetwork.com, (2015). “Chainsawed Century Trees in Manila”.  Retrieved on August 4, 2015 from http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/photo/153181/chainsawed-century-trees-in-manila