Silviculture of Mahogany trees

In the last 25 years, I have been very optimistic of the Philippines plight to move to the first world status. Lately, my evaluation of the country and its people have made me conclude that for as long as we live, this country would remain third world.

The main reason is the attitude of the people. Majority of the Filipinos does not like their friends or neighbors to move up ahead of them. They tend to claw them down. Consider Tony Meloto the founder of Gawad Kalinga who in his own right is giving away houses to the homeless Filipinos. Then all of a sudden some of the people who have joined them especially from the Couples for Christ were against his own mission. Why? Jealousy?

I spearheaded a project to provide modern laboratory facility to our alma mater. What happened? Some opposed them and did not like the idea. They wanted our fund to go directly to the association. Some few withdrew their support after they have been influenced by one of the members of the association. The facility was completed and inaugurated for the benefits of the students, but I was discouraged to do another project due to the attitude of some of our people.

I have thought of ideas to make the celebration of our class'57 an event to remember for a life time. They trashed the idea. Reunions are celebrated to see old time friends or former classmates whom we have not seen since 1957. I have thought of recreating the year 1957 by providing Kiosks with 1957 prices. Tokens would be the currencies circulating in 1957. I have thought of hiring 5 calesas to adorn the occasion( I was also thinking of promoting to bring back the calesa idea as a main transportation medium to a city that is polluted with carcinogens emitted from the tricycles). I thought of hiring professional entertainers such as the Madrigal singers, or the Bayanihan dance troupe to grace the occasion instead of watching a group of 65 year old classmates dancing the tinikling with little or no preparation. I have made the governor of the province commit to shoulder the expenses of the balik-tipon celebration at the Palayan convention center with a world class facility.

What happened?

The balik-tipon was held at the hot and humid gym of the NEHS where people find it uncomfortable to socialize, and have lunch. They say that the celebration was a great success but only to their eyes. People who have lived in North America or European countries for 3 decades or more see things differently. We are very organized,creative, and open minded expatriates, traits that we have adopted living in the first world country. Filipinos are smart people but their smarts are only use in the classrooms. We have to share our talent in order to make a difference but they dont. We are selfish in sharing our own ideas to other people thinking that the ideas we are sharing are inventions and could make them wealthy even without doing anything.

People in Canada or U.S. share their inventions, discoveries, recipes, chemical formulas, or music, cures for sickness, tricks to speed up work, engineering or medical technologies. People here believe that when we share, we get 10 times more of what we share.

There are no solutions to the endemic problems of the Philippines. Our culture and traits will forever be with us and this culture and traits are the ones that inhibit the progress of our country. Our crab mentality is ubiquitous and it keeps multiplying to put us all down.

God save our country!!!!

In 2003, shortly after the death of my mother, I planted 10,000 mahogany trees in our farm in Barangay Buliran, Cabanatuan City, Philippines. My reason for planting mahogany trees is three folds:

1.To make a positive difference to the ecology of the Philippines.Birds have migrated to my plantation and used them as their new habitat. During my visits, I have spotted a couple of grey owls in my plantation.  Somehow, a hunter shot the other owl for fun. The hunter was warned never to come back to my plantation.  Birds are nesting on the trees, and monkeys and deers are yet to be found.  

2.Create employment for the unemployed.

3. Source of income for my mission to help out the impoverished children of the Philippines through free education. In my interviews with the squatters who used to live in our compound in Mayapyap, the reason the squatters have remained squatters thru out their lives was because they had no education. They have no skills and most of the women wash clothes and get paid only $2 or Php 100 a day.

I started off with 12,000 seedlings that I bought from mahogany farmers in Carranglan, Nueva Ecija. I also brought in 12 planters from Carranglan to plant the seedlings. The ideal height of seedlings needed is 2 ft so that the weeds would not overcrowd the seedlings which if not taken care of would kill the plants.The trees are now 3 years and  3 months old and over 30 ft or 9.1 m in height and an average breast height diamenter of 3 inches or 7.6 cm . The rate of growth is 9 inches or 23 cm every month. We have been using urea to fertilize the trees and built irrigation system for the dry season which starts from November to April. Maintenance of the trees are high during its first year of operation because of the weeds and the need for water. Maintenance and labor is low  when the trees are two years old as we do not need to cut the weeds with weed cutters that require extensive labor and fuel. The trees are ready for harvest in 10-12 years after planting. The breast height diameter (bhd) is expected to be 30 cm or 12 inches. I also planted 100 Gmelina trees that are faster growing trees. The trees are ready for harvest in just only 5 years.  

Since I started planting trees in the area,  I have influenced a few farmers to plant the same kind of trees in the same local area of Buliran.

Last year, a brush fire destroyed 2000 of my trees. This year, I saw the same fire that were deliberately sat on the "talahib" grass that spread very quickly. For awhile, I heard a crackling sound from my "bahay kubo", then I saw some smoke. I hurriedly ran at the fire site. Fortunately, the fire did not spread to my plantation.

Due to the incident that I experienced which gave me the scare of my life, I installed 2 big drums at the end of the plantation. The drums are always filled with water. I intend to improve my primitive fire fighting equipment with a water tank installed 30 ft or 7.6 m above ground level and a water pump, to control the fire, if there is fire in the vicinity of the plantation. I will also be hiring security guards to protect the plantation. Also, I hired workers  who are now staying inside the compound and provided them with living accomodation.