One Hundred Years

Raymund L. Fernandez

published August 10, 2014 in Kinutil / Cebu Daily News

The question is as simple as it is sad. Is it or is it not right to cut down trees to make way for road widening projects? There can be no easy answer. Often the question is reduced to rhetoric leading nowhere. The best arguments go either way.

The protestor asks: Why are you cutting down trees? The tree cutter retorts: Because we have to and we can. As if there were no other options besides to cut down these trees. Which leads the former to ask: Are there really no other options besides to cut down these trees?

The tree cutter replies: Of course, there are no other options. Even if we build the road elsewhere other trees will still get in its way. And then the road would be so expensive it would be impossible to build. The environmental impact of building roads on the shoreline would be even worse than cutting down trees near the road. The tree cutter concludes somewhat rhetorically: Tell us where to put this road so that no trees will fall. To which, the environmentalist can only ask: But why do we need this road widened at all?

There are many reasons of course. There is the economy, road safety, traffic, but really, in one word: progress. So then, the issue becomes subjective and therefore logically irresolvable if the resolution we want comes close to being universally correct. Those who are best served by the road will most likely see the road widening as necessary. Those who don't will most likely argue in favor of the trees. 

Why do you cut down trees? The tree cutter returns back to the core assertion: Because we can! And then he might even add: We can always plant more trees. We can even plant one hundred for every one that we cut. Doesn't this balance the equation? Doesn't this seem to be right?

The environmentalist will always insist: Save the trees no matter what.

Gnarled Mass / May 25, 2014 / Estela Ocampo-Fernandez

Does it help to assume the viewpoint of the trees themselves? These trees have lived for hundreds of years. They have seen history pass through these roads. They are beautiful. They have been placed where they are through no fault of their own. Those who planted them there had no inkling at all we would ever need this road to be wider than what they needed at that time. And so now these trees will have to die. 

The word "die" is important. Who else but the tree is inclined to point out what is the best and perhaps the only reason really why they should not be cut down: They should not be cut down because they're alive. And every living thing on this planet should be given the best chance possible to survive. Even when we cut the tree at its trunk it will still continue to grow sprouting new leaves where it can, striving to continue on with its life. 

And even so, the question for humans redounds to: What truly is the value of the life of trees? For what value of human reward may the life of a tree be sacrificed? This argument would seem to favor the trees. But in practice not. Humans have a long history of sacrificing the lives of trees for human reward and gain. Trees give us homes, and paper, and so forth. The traditional view has always been that these gains far outweight the value of the life of a tree. We have cut them in the millions over millennia. We kill and eat animals all the time. So why  stop now?

At this point the disinterested viewer might conclude how far down the road to confusion this argument has reduced itself. And then, the same viewer might begin to correctly see how this can only be resolved as a contest of power, because that is really how it is. The tree cutter cuts the trees because he can. The environmentalist might in turn decide to stop the cutting of the trees by bodily putting themselves there, in front of the chainsaws. They can do so because they can. And then the argument would have to be brought before a court of law. Even so, the end result seems already academic.

It is the exotic moralist who should be given the last word: May all of you who cut these trees be reborn as trees in your next lives! Then at least, one day soon, hopefully not too long from now, certainly within the next one hundred years, you might see what life looks like from the other side of the road.

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The Blog

Raymund L. Fernandez
Kinutil / Cebu Daily News / August 17, 2014

"Do a blog!", his friend said, one evening, over drinks set on a glass table. Over there, the ash tray, some saucers, half empty now. His eyes follow a trail of glass upwards to the little jasmine tree a bit to the right of him. It is blooming blue polka dots tonight. His eyes immediately searched for the moon. He found it. It flew over a squadron of clouds. 

"It will not rain tonight!" he blurted out, realizing only too late how disconnected his answer was. Now he will have to explain himself. 

The friend on the other hand was not surprised with this answer. He knew he could take it as a yes. He has known him this long. They go back a long way.

The Moon on August 12,2014 / Estela Ocampo-Fernandez

Tonight the moon cast a light shade of blue over their group of friends. There is a garden of potted plants in the left hand side of the balcony. They are a group of friends, 6 tonight, but usually numbering anywhere from 4 to 7. They hang out here when there is no rain, this garden of good friends going along in years, but still quite young. Since it is always a good thing to be young, then let it be. 

Who was it who said? There must always be the young child inside us from whence comes the best things we ever do in our lives. Isn't it true? We must always nurture this little child as if it were a young tree. Like jasmine perhaps? We need more than a small measure of discipline to do this. The tree like a little child inside us, here, even now, that we are grown along in years.

Do a blog? He nods his head. And then finally, after a bit of a pause says: "Yes!" 

And how emphatically he states it. "Yes!" And then waits just a single second before quickly adding: "But it will still not rain tonight!"

"Don't worry about it. I'll help!" Estela tells him from across the table. She likes the idea. Danny takes this as final guarantee it will be done. And so here it is: kinutilthefamily.blogspot.com.

He guesses a blog is only a place that points to other places, like a doorway to a house. Every place must be an address on the map inside our heads. Every name is an address that must give us clue how to find it. Hopefully, "kinutilthefamily" will be easy to find. Hopefully, we will visit here from time to time. 

It will of course have "kinutil", the column, published through Cebu Daily News twice weekly. We should buy CDN whenever we can. CDN is a good idea we should help keep alive by buying the paper. "Keeping alive good ideas" is the first intent of kinutil and kinutilthefamily, since they are also good ideas. And how else do good ideas survive in the world over time?

Pictures give birth to words. Words are signs we exchange between us to tell each other how things do look and feel, what we sense, what we feel and think. Words are the medium by which we exchange notes between each other in order to describe the world about us. Ideas are the smell of jasmine under a moonlit night.

Kinutilthefamily will have a lot of words. If words are our pleasure, we will find a lot of that here - that and pictures. This is a place for finding art and literature and other things that cannot live in a place without good friends. The name comes with an invitation to keep alive certain things. It comes with an invitation for a regular visit as good friends do.

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Kinutil - the family

one evening danny dares raymund and larry to start their own blogs. find your tribe in the net, he said. here it is jong. challenge met. 

in this space we will share our thoughts in art and text. this will also be home to kinutil, raymund's articles for cebu daily news.

enjoy the weekend!

Marigolds from mother's garden / April 18, 2014 / Estela Ocampo-Fernandez