When Leadership Takes Root in Wounded Ground

She kneels on the soil in a polo shirt, hands steady as she plants a young sapling. Around her stand teachers, soldiers, and volunteers. The cameras are there, but her eyes are on a single sapling that will need rain, care, and time. That moment with Vice President Sara Duterte planting a tree feels simple. In truth, it is an act of defiance against a crisis that has thinned our forests and tested our faith in public service.

Across the Philippines, we lost about 1.5 million hectares of tree cover since 2001. That is an 8 percent decline from our 2000 baseline, with most recent losses coming from causes other than wildfire. Only about a quarter of our land remains forested today.

Luzon carries a heavy share of this burden. Studies mapping deforestation hotspots from 2000 to 2020 show that about four in five new hotspots cut into primary forests, and roughly one in three occur inside protected areas. The Sierra Madre is the last great wall against typhoons, yet even there the scars appear. In Rizal’s Upper Marikina watershed, home to Masungi Georeserve, rangers have faced illegal logging, quarry pressure, and land grabbing in what should be a refuge. In Palawan, often called our final ecological frontier, satellite analysis shows tens of thousands of hectares of humid primary forest lost since 2001.

The Visayas bleed too. Eastern Samar’s Homonhon Island has become a symbol of the nickel rush, with government reports noting expanding shipments and communities warning of erosion, siltation, and water pollution. In Cebu, a massive landslide in Naga City killed 78 people and displaced thousands. It struck near a quarry zone and became a national lesson on slope stability, extractive pressure, and risk.

Mining’s footprint is clearest where rivers turn brown. In Zambales, technical work on the Santa Cruz–Candelaria belt links laterite nickel operations with elevated sediment yields and water-quality risk. Amnesty International has also documented rights and environmental harms tied to fast-tracked nickel projects in Santa Cruz and Brooke’s Point. Communities report gaps in consultation and safeguards. Even outside these hotspots, provinces like Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental have steadily lost cover, with the majority of recent losses hitting natural forest.

This is the ground into which Sara Duterte is planting her one million trees. Some will ask if a seedling can stand against contracts, scandals, or the politics of flood control. The honest answer is that trees alone cannot cleanse a ledger or rebuild a broken procurement system. But they can anchor soil, slow runoff, cool towns, and rebuild watersheds. Where governance has been weak, living roots can still do quiet work that concrete alone cannot. The green act also sets a measure for leadership. It invites proof. Where will the trees be planted. Which species will be used. Who will track survival. How will communities be paid to tend them. These questions turn a photo into a program.

Let the planting be transparent. Publish the maps and species lists. Report survival each quarter. Prioritize slopes above flood-prone barangays and water-scarce towns. Pair trees with river desiltation, mangrove recovery, and honest audits of flood control funds. In Luzon’s Sierra Madre and Rizal, in Visayas islands like Homonhon, in Mindanao’s uplands that feed our great rivers, choose sites where a tree is not a token but a shield.

This is why the image of Sara planting matters. In a season when people doubt, the right response is service. A million trees will not solve everything. But a million living roots can hold ground while the nation forces a reckoning with corruption and neglect. That is not a distraction. It is stewardship in action.

If we want a country that stands after the storms, we must grow one. Let each sapling be a promise that leadership can still be clean. Let forests rise again where greed once cut deep. And let history record that when the land was failing, one leader chose to plant.

(Commentary: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of any organization or publication.)