Mall execs stop Baguio trees’ transfer after court issues order

BAGUIO CITY—Foresters of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) supervised the earth balling (transfer) of trees in a shopping mall compound that have become the subjects of a 72-hour temporary environmental protection order (Tepo) issued by a local court, a DENR official said Wednesday.

Clarence Baguilat, the DENR Cordillera director, said 40 alnus trees and one pine tree were uprooted and transplanted to a different site in Luneta Hill by work crews of SM Investment Corp. in the presence of DENR personnel. The mall had identified 182 pine and alnus trees that would be earth balled to make way for an expansion project.

Baguilat said the earth balling started on Monday night.

But at 10:20 a.m. on Wednesday, SM received a letter from Baguilat urging mall officials to stop the transfer of trees after Judge Cleto Villacorta III issued the Tepo.

The trees are being relocated to make way for an expanded mall facility, which environmental groups have been opposing since January.

On Wednesday afternoon, more than 1,000 church leaders, residents, students, artists and members of nongovernment organizations gathered outside the mall to protest the alleged defiance of the Tepo.

In his letter, Baguilat said he was urging the mall management to comply with the Tepo “without prejudice to whatever action your lawyers may take.”

In a statement, SM said some of its executives motored to Baguio at past 2 p.m. yesterday to receive a copy of the Tepo. In compliance with the order, SM postponed the earth balling in Luneta Hill, the statement said.

Villacorta’s order read: “What is being enjoined from taking place … is the cutting of trees, the earth balling of the trees, as well as the uprooting of the trees from the ground.”

“It is of extreme urgency because once the trees are cut, I don’t know of any technology that will bring them back to life,” Villacorta wrote in his order. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon