Environmental group Green Convergence has launched recently the fourth volume of its “Philippine Native Trees” book series, offering a comprehensive look at native trees and their intertwined roots with Filipino heritage and identify.
Launched last April 28 at Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan, the 980-page book “Philippine Native Trees 404: Rooted & Rising” showcases personal accounts, botanical information, and photos of various trees, as well as a compilation of 404 species of native trees for planting as alternative to exotic trees.
Authors and editors Jason Mansibang and Lillian Jennifer Rodriguez said they drew inspiration for the book from two prominent late environmentalists: Oscar M. Lopez, the late patriarch of the Lopez Group of Companies; and Leonard Co, a renowned botanist.
Rodriguez recalls spending fond memories with Leonard Co, whom he described not only as a brilliant botanist but also as a humble mentor who would gladly share with others his knowledge about plants and trees as a legacy for next generations to come.
“Hindi niya tinago ang kaalaman…Ibinahagi niya ito sa susunod na henerasyon [He did not keep his knowledge to himself…he shared it for the next generation],” Rodriguez said during the book launch.
Victoria “Vicky” Segovia, Green Convergence president, grounded the book launch in a clear sense of purpose: to celebrate the country’s rich and diverse natural heritage.
“Our native trees are silent witnesses to our history, protectors of our biodiversity, and vital allies in our response to climate change,” Segovia said, framing the book as “a tangible response to today’s growing ecological challenges.”
The book launch also gave Oscar’s son, First Philippine Holdings Corporation (FPH) Chairman Federico “Piki” R. Lopez a time to remember some fond memories he spent with his father and Leonard --- two individuals who greatly influenced his own love and appreciation for nature.
He acknowledged the botanist’s influence in FPH and its subsidiary First Gen Corporation, the country’s leading renewable energy producer and the parent firm of the world’s largest vertically integrated geothermal company, Energy Development Corporation (EDC). EDC is pursuing a target to plant 10 million trees around the country under the geothermal company’s Binhi program, the largest reforestation project ever launched by a power company in the Philippines.
“In many ways, he [Leonard] helped shape our own reforestation journey at First Gen Geothermal. Because Leonard taught us something profound: that restoration is not simply planting trees. It is helping restore relationship — between species, between place, between people and the living systems that sustain them.” Piki said.
He also cherished the memory of his father, Oscar. “My Dad had what I can only describe as a lifelong affair with trees, biodiversity, and nature. Even today, I vividly remember how my siblings and I grew up always surrounded by trees, animals and the outdoors,” Piki said, adding that his mom and dad “were always growing something or another.”
He further recalled that after the 1986 EDSA Revolution, just as his father was rebuilding a struggling FPH,, one of his earliest instincts was to reforest a barren land in Bamban, Tarlac.
“Over time, that love for nature found its way into how we operate our businesses. We began seeing stewardship not as peripheral to enterprise, but central to it,” Piki explained.
He recalled that, more than 50 years ago, his father planted a sapling of a tree, called bombax. The tree now towers at more than 100 feet over the family’s ancestral home in San Juan. But every time a typhoon barrels down the metropolis, strong winds break and strips the bombax of its branches.
“There were many times during our lives that the branches would break during a typhoon and then my mom would say, ‘Well it looks like the end of that tree.’ She kept saying it was dead,” Piki narrated. One day, he researched about it and told her, ‘Mom it does that in a storm. The branch will fall just so the whole tree can survive; but after that, it will grow again.’ And it does for maybe more than 50 to 60 years. I told her, that’s really the symbol of the resilience of nature that we can all learn from.”
Piki said the lesson from the bombax also reminds him of his father. [F]or me, the towering bombax has become a symbol of what he does best: allowing things to take root, then nurturing, and then growing them to stability and longevity.”.
“That bombax tree taught me early that legacy is not what we leave behind, but what we help continue growing,” the FPH chairman stressed. “And perhaps that is one of the great lessons trees, and nature, teach. They remind us that life flourishes through reciprocity.”
