Strong public opinion and protests compelled the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and comprador bourgeois Ramon Ang’s San Miguel Corporation (SMC) to suspend the mass cutting of the remaining trees along Quirino Avenue in Manila. Environmental groups led by Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) protested on May 26 to halt the tree-cutting.

The cutting is linked to SMC’s construction of the Southern Access Link Expressway (SALEX). The project will affect at least 617 trees on Quirino Avenue. SMC and DENR had already cut more than 200 old trees prior to the suspension.

Kalikasan said the suspension clearly resulted from collective action and public denunciation. The group nevertheless said DENR must be held accountable for issuing the permit to SMC to cut the trees. “Why only now? Why was this suspended and reviewed only after more than 200 trees were already cut?” Kalikasan’s Cathleen de Guzman asked.

De Guzman added, “this shows insufficient study and accountability from the start.” The agency should be held responsible because the project should not have been allowed from the outset. “DENR must be held accountable and continually charged. The agency must not serve as a rubber stamp for projects that favor big corporations at the expense of the environment and the people’s welfare,” she said.

The group added that the mass tree-cutting in Manila is not an isolated incident because the Marcos administration itself is the chief architect of wide-ranging, pro-business infrastructure projects that accelerate environmental destruction. SMC is also implicated in cutting at least 8,766 trees for the South Luzon Expressway expansion in Laguna, cutting mangroves and trees along the shoreline for the New Manila International Airport (NMIA) and related aerotropolises and roads in Bulacan.

For Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), the massacre of trees in Manila is a clear symptom of widespread corruption in the bureaucracy and the destructive use of laws and legal processes. The group said legality is weaponized to enable systematic plunder of the people’s funds and to approve destructive projects.

“They also show the shameless collusion of corrupt bureaucrats and big business interests in signing onerous contracts and the roll out of mega projects that cause massive harm and displacement to communities and environs,” the group said. Bayan emphasized that SMC is also behind cronies’ deals with the government including the Manila Bay reclamation, privatization of Ninoy Aquino International Airport, and expansion of coal mining in South Cotabato.

Bayan said public outrage over the widespread tree-cutting in Manila reflects not only opposition to environmental destruction but also to a rotten political system that allows corrupt officials to use their position to amass stolen wealth by enlarging their patron’s profit and other private interests. “This is another clear demonstration of the crises engendered by bureaucratic capitalism,” it said.