Philippine ironwood, 'Mangkono' adopted by San Beda College as its official Family Tree

MANILA, Philippines - As San Beda College prepares for its impending elevation to university status within a couple of months, it has taken up the suggestion of the San Beda Alumni Foundation (SBCAF) to adopt one of the country’s, and the world’s, most prized hardwood trees as the school’s official family tree.

The mangkono (Xanthostemon verdugonianus), also known as the Philippine ironwood tree is one of the hardest woods of the world. It is prized for its lumber – reputedly among the densest and strongest kinds of lumber. It is used as keels of wooden ships and house posts and beams; it is so strong no ordinary iron nail could penetrate it. Mangkono lumber sinks under the water because of its sheer weight and termites shy away from it.

In a letter last July to Rev. Fr. Mateo de Jesus, OSB, Rector-President of San Beda College, Dr. Jaime Galvez-Tan who heads the San Beda College Alumni Foundation Inc. put forward the suggestion, citing several reasons:

The mangkono is endemic or native to the Philippines and is one the most valued among the thousands of native tree species. Billowing pompoms of striking red flowers with white stamens match the official colours of the school. The mangkono also is the centrepiece of the Red Lions Living Highways (RLLH): Let’s Plant Native Trees project, whose aim is the planting of native trees along major roadways in the Philippines like the North Luzon Expressway. 

Launched last July 11 on the feast of the school’s patron St Benedict, the RLLH aims to turn the NLEX into a living museum of native trees with mangkono as the centrepiece species. It is also a fund-raising project to support the school’s educational apostolate through scholarships to poor but deserving students, professorial chairs and research grants for its faculty. This is a joint undertaking of the San Beda Alumni Foundation Inc and the Hortica Filipina Foundation Inc., an environmental NGO, which first proposed to its partner the idea of San Beda’s adoption of an official tree for the school.

In its meeting last September 22, 2009, the San Beda Executive Committee led by Rector-President Rev. Fr. Mateo de Jesus announced that the school is going to set aside areas of the Mendiola, Alabang and Taytay campus for the planting of the mangkono seedlings specifically planters along the pedestrian lane, football field and parking areas on Mendiola Street and substantial open spaces in SBC Alabang and Taytay. This will increase the mangkono population by a few thousands. Only a few thousand mature mangkono trees are left in the forests and in open spaces in Palawan, Leyte, Panay, Dinagat triangle and Mindanao.

The vision of having the majestic mangkono trees rising on the San Beda College campus in Mendiola, Taytay and Alabang, with their magnificent bursts of red flowers, will become a reality in time. The planting of the initial seedlings, including the turnover to the school of a growing mangkono tree by the Hortica Filipina Foundation, was held last Saturday, December 5, on the campus of San Beda College, with school officials, students, alumni, and Hortica members in attendance.

“By adopting this rare tree today, December 5, International Volunteers’ Day, San Beda commits to planting more of these trees to save it from extinction. It is fortunate for the Bedan community to have been introduced to a rare and wonderful tree that is not only an important part of Philippine heritage and patrimony but is also a tree that produces blooms in the colors of our alma mater,” SBCAFI president Jaime Galvez Tan said during the SBC’s Board of Trustees meeting last December 5 chaired by San Beda College alumnus, Dr. Manny V. Pangilinan. The first two mangkono saplings were planted recently at the SBC Mendiola campus by officers of the SBCAF and the SBC Alumni Foundation during its joint Christmas Party with Fr. Bernabarre, Fr. Alberic and Fr. Basil officiating.

SBCAFI is asking interested groups, institutions, companies and individuals to help sponsor the planting of native trees along NLEX and on other locations in the future. Interested parties may call the Living Highways project director, Ms Gay Maddela at telephone numbers (+632)986-9570/735-5995 and (+63)908 6235915 for details.

In the years to come, when San Beda College shall have become a full-fledged university taking its rightful place among the best and brightest of academic institutions, its faculty, students and workers, and no less its thousands of successful alumni, can proudly claim to have given another legacy to the country: the perpetuation of the mang-kono, preeminent Philippine hardwood tree, a symbol of toughness, beauty, usefulness and endurance.