Rage grows vs sacrifice of trees for Makiling road

CHILDREN march with their parents to protest the cutting of trees for a road-widening project at the foot of Mt. Makiling. AL BENAVENTE/CONTRIBUTOR

LOS BAÑOS, Philippines—Artists and environmental activists on Wednesday led a protest march, the first concrete expression of growing disgust over a road widening project on Mt. Makiling.

The protesters—bikers, businessmen and students—walked for a kilometer from this town’s municipal hall in Barangay (village) Timugan to the site where a line of kapok trees used to be.

They carried placards hand-painted with messages demanding a stop to the killing of trees.

On the site where the kapok trees were cut, they left coins and smoked kapok tree shavings, as some believed it to be an offering to mountain spirits.

Alex Baluyut, photographer and one of the leaders of the protest, said his group is planning to file a case in court against the project and obtain a temporary restraining order.

At least 29 trees had been felled to widen a 500-meter, two lane road in Magnetic Hill on Makiling. The project is the initial stage of the 5.6-km Mt. Makiling Ecological Garden Road, which would extend to a piece of property owned by the Boy Scouts of the Philippines.

The Department of Public Works and Highways said the project would ease traffic in the Los Baños junction, the main road to the University of the Philippines-Los Baños. “But that’s not the solution,” said local businessman Arvin Tylloy.