BAGUIO CITY—Samoja was an Ibaloy woman who lived to over a hundred years old. She knew Session Road all the way back to that era when the Americans came to make the city their rest and recreation station. Her memories of the then-mossy forest remained stark in her memory as Session Road was a playground to her and her young friends. Running barefoot on the soft carpet of moss, they swung the thick vines hanging from trees, from where Baguio got its name.

The Americans cleared parts of the forest where they built cottages out of the pine trees. In the wooden cottages the American high officials held their sessions, thus the name Session Road.

Fast-forward the changes a hundred years later, the Session Road today is a row of architecture where Baguio’s old hometown atmosphere is lost to a modern city setting. Except for a spot called Luneta Hill where SM Baguio stands. The building juts out from among natural garden and towering trees, the only patch of green that remains on this bustling central business street.

Green architecture

HOWEVER, this touch of green will soon be cleared to make way for an expansion plan of SM Prime Holdings.

SM boasts that this will be the first shopping mall with a certified “green building” design.

To make way for the seven story “green building”—a complex of open-air dining and entertainment; hotel and function rooms; banquet and multipurpose hall; retail shops; and an expansive parking space—close to 200 trees will have to be either cut or earthballed.

SM is proud to have an architecture partnership with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) created by the US Green Building.

The planned architecture includes a rooftop garden.

SM also said its green-building elements would neutralize the heat-island effect that huge parking lots cause.

Thinking green

THIS development came at a time when the city residents have heightened environmental awareness after having been devastated by landslides, floods and the tragic trashslide last year. Thinking green, many sectors will save every pine tree they could—perhaps out of the nostalgia of being called the City of Pines, or for sheer environmental reasons.

As word spread about the otherwise silent preparations of SM to start the project, a protest rally was quickly organized through an online petition spearheaded by Michael Bengwayan, executive director of Pine Tree, an organization for environmental justice, to save the trees on Luneta Hill.

On October 27 last year, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued SM a permit to earthball 97 naturally grown pine trees and 42 pine and alnus saplings and to cut 43 alnus trees, as cleared by the Environment Secretary Ramon Paje.

But Bengwayan said of a sad experience of Camp John Hay after it earthballed 475 trees in 1994—only 43 of the pine trees still live, with some on the brink of dying. With this ratio, only about eight trees are expected to survive from those to be earthballed on Luneta Hill.

On Facebook, Bengwayan posted how trees die when earthballed.

Pine trees and Alnus are taproot trees, deep-rooting. This means, the taproot is the main root that sustains the tree and that the lateral, feeder roots, coarse roots and water roots support the taproot. When you earthball, the machine used, normally a backhoe, cuts off the feeder, lateral and water roots, and the taproot is forced out. This stresses the tree, depriving it of water and nutrient and choking it off to die, slowly.

On SM’s rooftop garden, Bengwayan said the small Luneta Hill would not be able to hold the thousands of tons of soil needed for the artificial garden on top of the concrete structure. With concrete replacing the natural sponge, which is the vegetation-covered soil, and the absence of leaves of the trees that would, otherwise, soften the impact of rainfall, the run-off of water will flow down the streets below.

Protesters poured to Session Road on January 21 and expressed their fears about the SM expansion.

The religious, professionals, artists, students and others waved placards calling for the trees to be saved; for SM to “cut its greed and not the trees.” It was so far the biggest rally in the city in a long time.

Bengwayan said they would file a temporary environmental restraining order with the courts soon.

The online petition also called on President Aquino and presidential adviser on environment, Nereus Acosta, to prevent the cutting of trees in the city.

SM: We care

KARREN NOBRES, SM Baguio spokesman, said that in 2005 and 2010, SM experienced soil erosion on the property. In seeking out solutions, the collective inputs of experts revealed that a careful enhancement of the area would be the best solution. And so came about the globally accepted standards for green development and SM decided on LEED accreditation.

Nobres said that rather than merely complying with the condition of planting 20 saplings for every tree balled out, they were to increase this to 50 saplings.

She said that while SM respects the opinion of the public, they also hope that the public will understand their side.

“We shall continue to inform the public of our plans to help improve life in the city, promote improved engineering, help in traffic management, and make use of the city’s abundant rainfall,” she said.

SM also plans to build a 2,190-square meter water reservoir that can store as much as 4,300 cubic meters of water run-off.

At the rally, Bengwayan said a single mature pine tree would hold up to 400 pounds of water per year and store 40 tons of carbon in its lifetime of about a hundred years.

Domogan: ‘We have no right to stop SM development’

PROTESTERS sought the support of City Mayor Mauricio Domogan.

But Domogan said SM is private property, SM Prime Holdings having won the bidding for the lot years ago. SM Prime Holdings also complied with comprehensive land use plan and the zoning ordinance of the city.

“We do not have the right to stop their development,” he said.

Domogan defended what development can do for the city, citing that where St. Louis University now stands, a pine forest once existed.

“Nobody can deny the benefits the city gained having the university all these years,” he said.

He promised, though, a public consultation at the end of the month. This, after the project was already granted an environmental compliance certificate.

Will the last of the forest that was once Samoja’s paradise soon be paved and gone?