Monday, June 02, 2008 Dacawi: The Summer of 29 By Ramon Dacawi Benchwarmer
IT WAS supposed to be the summer of 32, but whittled down to 29 when three opted out. The three preferred to work in offices, sheltered from the rain and shine of April and May.
For a month, the rest of the girls and boys toiled in the quiet of the Busol Forest where the city draws its community water.
As recruits to the annual Special Program for the Employment of Students, all presumed they would do clerical or computer work, if not errands to deliver official letters written in the jargon of the local bureaucracy. At the most, or least, they had primed themselves up for sweeping floors and wiping desks and equipment of dust.
Instead, they were told to report in working clothes, and to bring along scythes, bolos, spades and rakes. And their daily "baon", to be eaten cold under the pines, pushed down by drinking water drawn from the source.
When it starts to rain, they were told, seek refuge in the shed where kids exploring the forest get briefings on how to plant and care for seedlings. They knew why the advice had to be repeated when they saw mature trees ripped clean of bark where lightning scarred its path, from top to base of trunks, killing the trees.
Unless they knew which were edible, they were not to touch any mushroom. Get high on grades, not on drugs, they were told.
In 30 days, they etched their own mark. They established fire breaks on the ridges estimated as two kilometers long and eight meters wide, propped up 2,000 seedlings with tree guards, dug a garbage pit, and cleared the lecture and cooking sheds' roofing of fallen needles.
They guided groups who came to plant and cleared the way to a secluded patch so the young, orphaned family of newsman Tinong Lardizabal, could plant a tree in his memory, beside those for Peppot Ilagan, Willy Cacdac, and others.
Near the end of their fieldwork, they were yanked out and driven to the stretch of Asin Road where they cleaned up garbage spills from the city's Irisan dumpsite that Typhoon Cosme's fury washed down from Km 5 to Km 7.
They never talked about calluses and bruises, until they were asked to show their palms at the end of what they initially thought was to be an ordeal. All are in their teens, mostly in high school, mostly girls trying to earn P231 a day for their school fees and needs.
Two of the four boys among them made it to the 10 most outstanding Spes workers at their closing ceremony last Tuesday evening. All could have been nominated but the rules of selection didn't allow that.
Should there be cash reward, the winners said it would be shared with the rest. After all, what they accomplished was the result of teamwork. And camaraderie, a labor of love sustained by shared laughter.
On their last day, a senior police officer helped them buy food they prepared for a farewell picnic. City administrator Peter Fianza added two gallons of ice cream, saying he was inspired by what he heard about their passion for manual labor.
They wrote and read their impressions of their toil in the forest. The scribbles had one underlying theme: the harder the experience, the more memorable it becomes.
The feeling somehow approximates what writer May Sarton calls a "sacrament of the ordinary" catalyzed by repetitious manual labor witnessed only by trees.
On their last week, some decided to camp in the forest they have learned so much about and to appreciate. The four boys had been sleeping there for quite sometime, to cut on the double jeepney fare - from their home to downtown and then to Busol, back to town and to home.
This prompted Administrator Fianza to write the Baguio Water District (BWD), the agency that extracts and sells water from the watershed. He asked if the district could reimburse the kids' two-way fare from the city proper to Busol and back, as those assigned at City Hall spent only half the fare, from office to home.
The water district replied with regrets. "We regret to inform you that expenses such as these are not permitted as we have a separate continuing program in the maintenance and protection of the Busol Watershed," the BWD said in part. "These include enhancement activities of adopters and other volunteers and close monitoring of the activities and performance of the security guards assigned in the area, who perform security services 24 hours a day, seven times a week."
With teachers and other volunteers, I've been in Busol for 16 years now, guiding children in their planting and caring for trees under the Eco-walk Children's Program.
We've seen their seedlings grow in the same token that we saw some of the kids grow. The return of the forest cover is basically the work of children, for which they collectively received the 2002 Global 500 award from the United Nations Environmental Programme.
That honor, bestowed on World Environment Day in China, elevated the kids to a roster of environmentalists the likes of marine explorer Jacques Cousteau, Sir David Attenborough, and the late Chico Mendez of the Amazon Forest.
Thanks to the regular presence of kids and the work of SPES students that deterred vandals, I've counted only five fires - and minor ones at that - over the past 16 years in the BWD's water source.
That's why I know better than what the BWD letter tried to say about plowing back its profits to protect the water source. I presume the BWD received several letters from us asking that tree planting be coordinated so that areas kids are continuously maintaining would not be overlapped by others.
My eyes filled when over a hundred pine poles were cut by thieves in the night. Like a child ripped of his marbles by the school bully, I dropped down and sobbed when a steel lookout tower, built for kids by the Baguio Regreening Movement, was repeatedly cut down by acetylene torch and carted away by robbers who remain scot-free until now.
I, too, know that, in previous years, the BWD saw fit to reimburse the assigned students' two-way fare as its counterpart to the city's shouldering their wages at 29 kids x P241 per day x 30 days = P209,670.
We acknowledge those past gestures of the BWD with deep gratitude.
Now, we have to turn to other Samaritans. City administrator Fianza and I promised the kids we'll try to raise P13,050, which is the total of 29 kids x P15 two-way jeepney fare x 30 days. If you, yes, you, dear readers, can spare an amount, call us up at cell phone number 09166203183 or landline 442-2502. I know many of you struggled your way through college, as will these 29 young boys and girls who experienced summer making a difference in their community watershed.
Composing the summer of 29 are Grethel Aboli, Grail Joy Apil, Grail Aplosen, Florence Ao-ay, Sharlimae Basitan, Jhenny Becera, Jamie Caspitrano, Dretzel Carlos, Ronalou Cayabyab, Glorimae Chag-usen, Charie Kaye Colar, Sheila Cordero, Geraldine Diwag, Micheal Allan Ebacuado, Arries Farucanag, Sherylyn Ferasan, Beverly Dawn Kalingan, Dan Labcaen, Divina Lepago, Junia Mangallay, Heile Moyamoy, Ligaya Ngipol, Josephine Payumo, Maybelline Quioc, Nanette Sadcopen, Evangeline Sagmayao, Clyde June Sta. Ana, Bernadeth Villacarlos and Fe Wadwadan.
