Balete tree ‘dead’, can Narra be saved?

THE “balete” tree uprooted from M. Velez Street is already dead.

The Cebu City Commission on Parks and Playgrounds is now hoping to save one large Narra tree, also due for removal from a road-widening project there.

“That’s the biggest narra tree I’ve seen in Cebu,” said . We have a plan, if we are permitted, to ball it out and place it at Fuente Osmeña,” said Dr. Librado Macaraya Jr., chairman of the PPC.

Several fire trees can also be transferred to Plaza Independencia, if a permit is given by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

DENR Regional Director Isabelo Montejo yesterday issued a stop order against more cutting or earth-balling of eight trees from M. Velez Street after belatedly learning that a four-meter-tall “balete” tree was cut down without a permit and transferred to an open field in the South Road Properties by a private road contractor of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

The “balete” tree, now a five foot stump is “already dead” confirmed Arlie Gesta, PPC administrator who checked it yesterday.

The tree has two connected stumps placed at the back of the San Pedro Calungsod templete next to other trees which were also earth-balled and moved to the area by the PPC.

“It was really balled out wrongly. They didn’t follow our instructions on how to do it. Based on my assessment, it’s already dead, the two trunks,” Gesta told CDN.

Gesta said the tree stumps were very dry . Under the bark, the insides were brown instead of white.

Nearby other earth-balled trees, including five jackfruit trees and six Indian taken from a road fronting the City Health Department, are still alive. Ten Narra trees from a road project in barangay Mambaling were transferred to the templete in October last year.

“These had proper documents. One Narra tree, died but the remaining are still alive,” Gesta said.
Councilor Nida Cabrera, PPC member, said that in the case of M. Velez, the tree was really within the road project. We don’t want it to be cut down, so we recommended that it should be earth-balled,” Cabrera told CDN.

The problem, she said, was that the contractor did not let the PPC supervise the transfer or earth-balling.

Based on the minutes of the PPC’s February 25 meeting with the project contractor JJ&J Construction and General Merchandise, represented by site engineer Alfred Tio, two large trunks of balete tree were already moved to the SRP.

The contractor agreed to water the newly transplanted trees for at least two months.

But the firm did not do it’s job to ensure the tree’s survival, said Macaraya.
Macaraya said they are waiting for the DENR to s anction the contractor. /UP Cebu intern Angeli Sarmiento,