PAGASA reported that at 1:45 in the afternoon the other day, it recorded the warmest temperature so far this year. The reading of 34.5 degrees Celsius and heat index at plus 40 degrees Celsius was, in the picturesque words of ABS-CBN's Sir Leo Lastimosa, hotter than a high feverish temperature that could effect convulsion on young children. PAGASA authorities then advised us to stay indoor or should we be walking outside of our homes to be in the shade and be hydrated always.
Well, when the atmospheric reading was registered, I was in the mountain. I went to Barangay Paril in order to prepare the ground for some tree-planting activity that my lady Carmen and her friends have scheduled on June. My friends and I did some manual hard labor. We dug big boulders, leveled some terrain and moved soil.
The activity we performed in Barangay Paril was, by itself and using any physical standards, strenuous. All the more, the sweltering heat would, in the ordinary man's imagination, have told heavily on our performance. The hot temperature would have slowed us tremendously. Yet, we did not really feel the kind of heat that weather specialists reported. It might be really a hot day but the heat's perceived effect on a workingman's effort was not that impactful to us.
Here is an attempt to explain it. To confess, I know of no scientific basis other than simple observation to anchor this explanation. My farm is very small in size. Its area is just enough to grow vegetable for own consumption. But, the first thing I did upon acquisition of this lot was to plant trees along its boundary. So far, I have grown about 200 Mabolo trees. By the way, this specie, when made into a lumber, is the popular Kamagong.It is a hardwood. Some of the Mabolo trees are now fruit bearing and as tall as 15 feet.Others are barely a foot high.
We also planted about 50 Tugas trees few of which have trunks with the size of an average man's upper limbs and about 50 Guyabanos now about three feet tall. In this small farm, we have also planted other species of trees like Avocado, Caimito, Chico, Macopa, Nangka, fruits from which we already tasted. And, in order to attract birds, we made sure that Bugnay grows in different parts of this small lot.
I have reason to believe that if we did not feel the kind of seemingly unbearable heat reported by PAGASA, while we did manual labor, the presence of trees had a lot to do with it. It was breezy in our area. On the elevated part of the land where we were working, the air was pure and it seemed to keep the warm temperature away.
My point in writing this piece is simple. From the experience of planting trees, I want to point out that man can really help fight global warming. The trees that I had grown in my little farm, may be replicated by all of us planting trees in whatever small areas we can find. I imagine that the livable comfort I had the other day when PAGASA registered the warmest temperature, could also be generally felt. Indeed, if only each one of us spends time to plant trees and equally important takes care of them, we may still have cooler days ahead.