Senator Jamby Madrigal is not (yet) my candidate for president, but I have to take my hat off to her for (temporarily?) stopping the massacre of 5,000 trees.

As reported, it was her appearance at the scene, the narrow and very old MacArthur Highway in Pampanga all the way to Tarlac and northward that the homicidal tree-cutting crews of DPWH gave way to when they saw she meant business. I’m sure other individuals and groups did their part to heckle and harass the killers into retreating, but knowing how their minds work, only an important title like “Senator” convinced them to stop what they were doing.

DPWH claims it has a permit from DENR, and, true, the highway needs widening, but those jerks never read poetry, do they, how “poems are made by fools like me but only God can make a tree?" Potenciano Ilusorio put it differently, “Trees are more useful than some people.”

Which DENR? As early as 2002 or 2003, DPWH had already cleared the way for the genocide of the trees, backing down only when the newspaper where I worked at the time put the story with pictures on the front page day after day, until one subaltern threw in the towel with these words, “Baka magalit si GMA” (GMA could get mad).

I’m hoping it’s not a Lito Atienza permit this time, because last month, on the seventh day of July, the Secretary declared that his department “will not allow any cutting down of trees to give way to any development project” and “developers must design their projects around the trees in the area.” That’s telling them, Mr. Secretary!

If DPWH wants to widen the highway, let them design a new parallel road to avoid the trees. Three years, five years to build a road, but another 50 to replace what we already have in abundance, 5,000 trees beautiful in the rain, in the sun, through drought and floods.