On trees!

It has been 4 days since Typhoon Milenyo and the roads have not been cleared of all the fallen trees and other debris. Actually many, particularly those blocking the roads have already been cut and the logs piled together, some are actually neat piles and you wonder what they are going to do with it. It would be a waste to make them just as firewood since some of the trunks are pretty big! I guess the same thought went in the mind of MMDA chair- Bayani Fernando, thats why MMDA has launched the Disenyo Milenyo contest wherein people are encouraged to submit artwork from all the trunks from the trees. I wonder what they’ll come up with?

Anyway, yesterday my brother and I went to south of Metro Manila and the damage there seems greater than in Quezon City. Aside from the 2 large billboards that collapsed-- the one in Estrella St. which was on top of the building and which did not only destroy part of the building and vehicles nearby but also caused loss of a life; and the one in Magallanes which was also one huge square billboard frame (it had four sides forming a square and you somehow wonder why being balanced it would collapse) which hit one side of the flyover --there were more TREES and other structures that fell down and were damaged!

We would slow down a bit each time we would come across a structure or a big tree that had major damage BUT my brother also slowed down at one point to check if his favorite tree was affected. He was really happy to see it standing tall and beautiful and PERFECT (as he calls it) and unscathed, its leaves alive and so green! It was an ACACIA tree along Commonwealth Avenue in an enclosed part (grill fence) owned by the University of the Philippines. There were other acacia trees there too and they did not seem to have incurred major damage as well.

I was thinking about the trees that were uprooted or have been cut and those that remained standing. I was trying to look for a common denominator on what would cause a tree to fall in a typhoon. There were some trees that are so sickly looking and thin that survived and there are those that seemed to be firmly rooted on the ground which looked pretty healthy (well I pass them almost everyday and know how they looked before the typhoon) yet fell, there were even those that have been covered by concrete that cracked the concrete and fell! Even many those that have been trimmed already to prevent accidents were also affected. I concluded that that there would always be something that would have a bigger bearing on the way things are BUT that you can not really say by just appearances.

I’m just glad about my brother's favorite tree being able to survive the typhoon because he is right, it is really a beautiful tree, I'm also glad that somehow despite the many fallen trees, there are still lots of trees that have survived and even remained beautiful and those that have fallen? Well somehow they’ll be put to good use not just on the design contest but also lots of people hoping to get good source or firewood… and those that still have roots, hopefully they grow again and that they become stronger for the next typhoon.