Leonard Co’s book of nature’s medicines relaunched

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—Slain botanist Leonard Co spent years building up a directory of indigenous herbs and medicinal plants, which he distributed at little cost to Cordillera communities to help augment health care in remote areas.

Co’s friends and former classmates at the University of the Philippines Baguio relaunched a new edition of this directory, which make up his 1984 book on medicinal plants, on Wednesday. The event was held on the first anniversary of his death.

Co was conducting a biodiversity project commissioned by the Energy Development Corp. (EDC) in Leyte when he and two of his companions were shot dead. The military claimed he was caught in crossfire when soldiers encountered communist rebels in the area. Co’s family and friends believe soldiers fired at his team, mistaking them for members of the New People’s Army.

The book, “Common Medicinal Plants of the Cordillera Region,” lists down 120 indigenous Cordillera plants and provides recipes for their use as medicinal remedies.

For example, Co suggests that a bout of acute bacillary dysentery requires a drink of boiled juice from the “buntot-kapon” (Pteris mutilata L.), a fern that grows in Sagada, Mountain Province.

Each entry has illustrations of indigenous plants to help Cordillera villagers distinguish medicinal herbs from wild plants, as well as descriptions of the plant’s origins.

A section of the book provides guidelines for preparing and storing medicinal plants. Another section breaks down the clinical research undertaken to test the efficacy of these plants.

The book has been useful to the Community Health Education, Services and Training in the Cordillera Region (Chestcore), where Co worked during his field research in the Cordillera.

Co also helped establish UP Baguio’s herbarium, said botany professor Theodora Balangcod, one of his classmates.

Co was studying in UP Baguio when he started compiling notes on indigenous plants in between classes, said management professor Erlinda Castro-Palaganas.

Palaganas, a Chestcore board director, said Co’s book was popularized at the same time the government was advocating Republic Act No. 6675 (Generics Act of 1988).

One of Co’s primary ambitions was to revive sections of forests that were denuded by farms or by urban settlements because medicinal plants grow in these areas, said biology professor Celia Austria.

Austria said Co left a note with another friend which said: “If I die, in the course of my work, my only request is for a forum to be held in my name to honor the work I do to conserve Philippine forests.”

Heeding this wish, Austria began the year mounting forums to discuss Co’s research and theories about forest corridors, a reference to patches of woodland that is separated by human habitation but which could still be revived and sustained to serve communities.

Unless a forest is depleted to a critical point when its tree, animal and plant life can no longer replenish naturally, cutting trees alone will not destroy the forest habitat, Austria said.