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Battle for Baguio trees rages
By Shielo Mendoza | Yahoo! Southeast Asia Newsroom â€" 19 hours ago


Youth groups led by Kabataan Partylist Rep. Raymond Palatino urged the government on Wednesday to immediately revoke the permit granted to SM Baguio allowing the “massacre” of close to 200 trees for its expansion project.

Palatino handed over to Environment Secretary Ramon Paje an appeal letter to stop the cutting and balling of Baguio's pine trees following SM's reported defiance of the court order temporarily halting the removal of the trees on Tuesday.

“With SM's stubborn and unruly refusal to recognize the court order, it is now up to the national government to exercise its power as a vanguard of environmental protection, not as Henry Sy's patron," he said.

The youth solon also appealed to Secretary Paje "to set aside as null and void this license-to-kill at the soonest possible time."

Through a memorandum signed by Paje in October, DENR granted its regional office in the Cordillera Administrative Region a clearance to issue a tree-cutting and earth-balling permit in favor of SM Baguio.

Palatino called the permit “a grave environmental injustice that favors SM's insatiable greed for profit at the expense of the environment and the safety of local communities.”

Meanwhile, Senator Francis Escudero, Senate environment committee chair, urged SM to obey and respect the court’s temporary environmental protection order.

“It must have taken about several number of years to grow pine trees that size. Why should it take only a few weeks to cut or ball it down? What's a few more weeks to look deeper in the issues involved,” Escudero lamented.

“While temporary as it may, it will enable all the stakeholders enough breathing space to take stock and study their respective options before making any permanent actions that might unduly affect our fragile ecosystem and environment,” he said.

sounds like a reenactment of the centuries-old acacia trees in guindulman, bohol which were cut by the town mayor.

Kini basin mapugngan pa, ang sa Guindulman hagbay rang gikulit sa universal hall of infamy...