DEATH ALONG THE HIGHWAYI don't know if anybody else has noticed but a biological catastrophe is happening right now among Dapdap trees (sc. name: Erythrina orientalis) in Metro Manila. Just this weekend, as I drove up Julia Vargas and turned onto Meralco Avenue in Ortigas Center, I realized that every - and I mean every - Dapdap tree lining the street was DEAD. And not just "dead" dead but DEAD - a putrefyingly sick-looking horror movie kinda dead. All of them looked like they were eaten up from the inside by some alien virus which left them without leaves and their barks peeling off in stringy pelts. And not only were the Dapdap trees of Ortigas Center withering away, but as I kept driving, I also noticed that the trees in the CCP complex and all along Roxas Boulevard to Makati also suffered the same fate. Even the Dapdap trees in cloistered Forbes park are now dead too. Yo. What the freak is going on here? Has anybody else noticed this? I really feel like I'm the only one taking crazy pills here. And excuse me, Manila media? Are you too busy with that morbidly obese opportunist Michaelangelo Zuce and whatever hypocritical stupidity is going on in Garci-gate to realize we have an arboreal biohazard epidemic happening under our noses? Can we all kindly pull our heads out of our asses and and take a proper look at this situation? It is not normal to live in a city where trees die from strange bacterial plagues and it goes unnoticed. Scientists? Please shed some light on the matter.
