Baguio, a mountainous city in the Northern Philippines, gifted with pine trees, has waged eternal war with developers who want to chop down the city's pine trees and build this or that.

One of the staunchest allies in the city's war on the developers, Saint Louis University(SLU), has turned traitor.

After years of proclaiming their own undying love of the environment, SLU planners, when faced with a pine tree in the way of their own building plan, became indistinguishable from the developers it has so chastened over the years.

"Chop it down!" came the order from the SLU president. Familiar words from an unfamiliar mouth.

Betrayal is always hard to stomach, the worse from a trusted ally. We now have a new classification. We have always had environmentalists and anti-environmentalists. Now we have 'cosmetic environmentalists', those who love to dress up as dedicated and play the part.. oh, so well...as long as its convenient for them and then the moment it might actually cost them something, like an altered building design, reveal the falsity of their committment.

In this case their is a pine tree in the way of a building the university wants to build.

We will follow the case here on this web site. The Mayor of the city is against the cutting of the tree. The people of Baguio City are against it. The students and faculty of Saint Louis University itself are against it. All that are for it are the few small building planners and they are determined to exert their will over all.

We will see how this turns out.

Here is the tree, earlier.. and now,

You will see half of it is already missing. That is because the SLU planners didn't bother to get a Tree Cutting Permit before they started chopping. Even they, though, had to cease and desist afeter the Mayor's office was alerted to their illegal hacking. (If any of you out there are Filipino attorneys and know of legal action that may be pursued against SLU for premature cutting, please email admin@SluPineTree.com.)

You may read the background on the situation by clicking here, or view the newscast video by clicking here, or view the Manila newspaper coverage here.

I'm sure after some reading many of you will want to convey some personal mesage to the SLU planners. They can be emailed at:

President Jesse M. Hechanova:

Vice President for Finance, Ms. Evangeline Trinidad, the Chief Planner:

assistant Treasurer Auturo C. Calwag:

Check this web site daily to find out the status at the construction site and any new developments.