Thursday, November 25, 2010
In Memoriam: Leonard Co (1953-2010)
In Memoriam: Leonard Co (1953-2010)
November 17, 2010 //
11
I am told that the interview will be at the office of taxonomist Leonard Co, which also happens to be the herbarium of the UP Institute of Biology. This information thrills me. A close second to my favorite fantasy of being the caretaker of the archives of great writers has always been as caretaker of a very important collection of Philippine plant specimens. Soon, there will be no such thing as the extinction of the Philippines’ primary forests. (It’s a fantasy.) Of course, having absolutely no education nor training nor experience whatsoever in the latter, I’d be lucky to be offered a job at the herbarium canteen, to which I will say yes wholeheartedly.
To me, herbarium specimens and botanical prints are some of the most beautiful things on earth and, out of my geeky love for them, wrote a poem about taxonomy entitled “Naming”. Given the chance, I can and will spend hours looking at Father Manuel Blanco’s Flora de Filipinas and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera’s Plantas Medicinales de Filipinas. The taxonomic enterprise means the pursuit of order and classification by the act of naming of the vast and riotous natural world, where species by their sheer volume can become extinct even before their “discovery”. The quiet devotion and scrupulous study it demands belies the sheer audacity of the work. I look forward to meeting Leonard Co.
I didn’t know that UP had an herbarium, was so excited that I showed up an hour earlier than scheduled and sat on the steps of Bio Pav where it was located, anxiously testing my tape and mp3 recorder and practically memorizing Leonard Co’s CV. Come the hour and I head straight to his office, eager to see neat stacks of specimen sheets—preserved Philippine plant specimens, browning, brittle, but carefully mounted on stiff white cardboard with their meticulously written specimen labels—then the species folders under the genus folders, and, finally, the herbarium cabinets. I knock, the door opens.
My heart sinks. The room looks more like the storage area for a newspaper drive. Surely this can’t be the herbarium. On top of a big table, Leonard Co’s work area, rises a great mound of old newspapers folded in half, and plant parts spill out of their makeshift folders.
“Hi,” somebody greets me. I turn and find my subject Leonard Co, in his white T-shirt and cargo pants, offering me his hand and a warm grin that still fails to hide his unease at this interview. I smile amiably back, shake his hand then, counting on the fact that I am a UP graduate back in UP with a UP professor, I go straight from impersonal to impertinent. “Sir, ito ang herbarium natin?” He relaxes, sits down, and gives a loud curse. “Oo! Ganyan kung paano natin pahalagahan ang science at botany dito [sa Pilipinas]!”
Over the course of our interview, Leonard rages against the lack of funding and support for science from the government, the non-scientific and halfhearted “green” projects of corporations that can potentially do more harm than good, and the restrictions being put on botanists doing conservation work because they are being accused of bio-prospecting and bio-piracy among others. I am disabused of all my romantic notions of plant systematics. In their place however is a growing admiration for a brilliant man who seems willing and up to the mammoth task of biodiversity conservation in the country.
We then proceed to talk about Rafflesia, a species of parasitic plant that I have to write about, and the fact that one species, Rafflesia leonardi, has been named after him by Dr. Julie Barcelona as a tribute to the taxonomist who is well known for his work on Philippine medicinal plants and is considered by many scientists as the best botanist in the country. He practically leaps from his chair, eager to show me the plaster of Paris model of Rafflesia leonardi that just arrived from the National Museum that morning. Two of his former students, one an apprentice, are present throughout the interview, and they seem to grow impatient with my questions. “Ask him about his first collection,” one suggests eagerly. A mammalogist who worked with him in the mountains and the rainforests of Northern Luzon shares how Leonard slipped and fell during a climb. He had his camera and laptop on him, but the first thing Leonard said was, “Ang mga specimens!” Dr. Barcelona, in a separate interview, tells of how she had to promise to take him to a population of Rafflesia in her province just to get him to attend her wedding.
Leonard admits, “Anything that’s not related to botany, sa akin distraction yan eh.” This singularity and sense of vocation is important. “The biological richness is so bewildering. We have limited resources, eh, ang lawak nito, saan ba natin i-invest?… Kailangan pa natin ng mga tao. Versus the volume of the work, ang conservation parang catch-up ka lagi. Before 2012 strikes! Repent! For the end is near!” He laughs heartily.
Last Monday, November 15, 2010, Leonard Co and his two companions, forest guard Sofronio G. Cortez, and Julius Borromeo, a member of the Tongonan Farmers Association, were caught in a crossfire between the military and members of the New People’s Army. They were gathering specimen seedlings of endangered native trees and were killed. Together with everyone involved in our book, I weep over this tragic loss. I reread the transcript of our interview and look at our interview tapes. I write this post in the present tense.
I dread the thought of going back to the manuscript, to his chapter, to revise it. And the dread is not just about getting the tenses right, although the pathos of it debilitates me right now, but writing it again knowing that an absence—definite, final, relentless—seals each revision. The interview took place a year ago, November 11, 2009. I am publishing here excerpts of our conversation as if an invocation.
On his childhood: Bata pa lang ako, mahilig na talaga ako sa pagkolekta ng anu-ano. Pero mas nauna ako na-interes sa mga shells, sa beetles. Natatandaan ko nun sa National Bookstore merong Golden Nature’s Guide. So, meron akong moth. Ikumpara ko sya. Oops, may konting resemblance. Elementary ako nito. Tapos kung meron pang nagtambak ng graba dun sa malapit sa amin, pupunta rin ako kasi meron din akong Rocks and Minerals. O, heto ay hornblend. Pero of course mali yung I.D. That’s the first attempt, the visual comparison. A natural curiosity. Natural talaga na gusto kong nagsi-systematize, nagka-classify ng mga bagay-bagay. Yung iba, hindi ko ma-kolekta, tulad ng constellations. And then in high school, I had one teacher sa biology sa Philippine Chinese High School, and this guy eventually became the world-renowned moss taxonomist Benito Tan. Siya pa yung dorm master. Every weekend aalis yun, akyatan kami ng bundok, kasama ako. Binigyan ako ni Benny ng kopya [ng Flora of Manila]. I think birthday gift. Dun ako nag-aral ng botanical terminology, and of course, bago ko ibigay yung specimen kay Mr. Hermes Gutierrez, i-try ko muna identify. Halimbawa bigay ko weekend, next week babalikan ko. Tapos makikita ko karamihan sa mga ina-identify ko mali. Minsan tumatama.
On his UP days: Ang tatay ko against sa idea ng botany. Ayaw niya. “You study botany—what for? Di ka yayaman diyan.” He wanted me to become an engineer. Eh, mahilig naman ako sa chemistry, so why not Chem Eng? Mahina ako sa Math. O, Chem na lang. First sem ko dito, bumagsak ako sa Math 17. Sabi nung adviser ko, “Naku Mr. Co, I think you better shift to another course. I don’t think you will survive.” “Oo nga ho, eh.” Mahina talaga ako sa Math. So nag-transfer na lang ako, botany naman talaga gusto ko eh. Di pa quota course yan kasi may pre-med pa nun eh. Madali ako nakapasok. Nalaman na lang ng tatay ko after two sems. So yun. Iba ang aral. Kasi ang gusto ko nasa labas. Last year lang ako nag-graduate. Yung time namin, those were turbulent times. Political activism. Nag-aaral, nag-e-exam mga ka-klase ko, nagmi-meeting kami. Pero kasi kahit namundok kami, we still had botany in the boondocks. Isa sa mga task ko dati sa health work ang traditional medicine. Kaya isa sa mga libro ko nga Medicinal Plants of the Cordillera. Alam mo one time na-destino ako sa Davao, sa isang guerrilla zone. Nakita ko dun ang libro namin. Tinranslate sa Bisaya. Yung trabaho namin nun, we translate acupuncture textbooks, medicinal plant manuals na ginagamit ng barefoot doctors because at that time, tinatanong namin: Science for whom? Science for the people.
On indigenous culture and botany: Marami tayong indigenous knowledge systems na deeply intertwined sa surroundings natin. And in fact, tanggalin mo ang plant lore sa isang kultura, yung traditional na kultura, mawawalan ng identity yang mga yan: mga alamat nila, mga sayaw nila. Sa Palawan nga nakakita ako ng mga ganyan eh. Mga ritwal nila sa pagkuha ng pukyutan, mga ritwal sa paggawa ng arrow poison. Ang conception nila ng disease causation, ang diagnosis nila, magkaiba yan sa bio-medicine…. Although hindi natin natututukan, sinasabi natin, nanganganib ang kanilang mga kultura, we are discussing this in general terms. Kasama ng pagkaubos ng biodiversity natin ay pagkaubos din ng traditional knowledge system.
On education and building awareness for conservation: The starting point is natural history appreciation. Hindi mo mamahalin ang isang bagay na hindi mo naiiintindihan. Mas lumalalim ang pagintindi mo, mas lumalalim ang concern mo.
On taxonomy: Taxonomy is not a haphazard remembering of names. We learn not through memorizing. You don’t memorize them. These are relational knowledge. Kagaya nito, walang pangalan, anong pamilya nito, ano ang mga katangian na nandito. Relational knowledge, parang, si Juan de la Cruz ay nakatira sa ganitong household, na belonging to this barangay, and so on. Sa lahat ng branches ng biology, taxonomy ang discipline with a sense of history. Ang systematics walang current literature diyan. Ang current literature namin dates back to 1753. Yung kay Linneaus. Eto rin ang pinaka-encyclopedic ang breadth. Yung volume ng alam mo kailangan malaki. Wala kaming concept of current literature. So, walang nalulumang literatura sa amin.
On his personal projects: These are personal projects that I need because malayo tayo sa botanical center so that any student of botany interested in the article, dowload mo na. … Why penalize researchers [by having them download per page] when you can download it as an entire pdf? So yung mga old documents, kinukuha ko na. Pati yung sa neighboring countries. The other one is a digital herbarium, arranged sila by famiy, and these are the specimens na pinagbatayan ng original descriptions. At open ang distribution nitong databases. Ginagawa ko din yung kay Merrill kasi yung last checklist natin nung 1923 pa. Heto yung literature citations, collection numbers. Gusto kong ilabas as hard print and afterwards as database on the Internet. This work is lifetime.
http://mabidavid.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/in-memoriam-leonard-co-1953-2010/
November 17, 2010 //
11
I am told that the interview will be at the office of taxonomist Leonard Co, which also happens to be the herbarium of the UP Institute of Biology. This information thrills me. A close second to my favorite fantasy of being the caretaker of the archives of great writers has always been as caretaker of a very important collection of Philippine plant specimens. Soon, there will be no such thing as the extinction of the Philippines’ primary forests. (It’s a fantasy.) Of course, having absolutely no education nor training nor experience whatsoever in the latter, I’d be lucky to be offered a job at the herbarium canteen, to which I will say yes wholeheartedly.
To me, herbarium specimens and botanical prints are some of the most beautiful things on earth and, out of my geeky love for them, wrote a poem about taxonomy entitled “Naming”. Given the chance, I can and will spend hours looking at Father Manuel Blanco’s Flora de Filipinas and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera’s Plantas Medicinales de Filipinas. The taxonomic enterprise means the pursuit of order and classification by the act of naming of the vast and riotous natural world, where species by their sheer volume can become extinct even before their “discovery”. The quiet devotion and scrupulous study it demands belies the sheer audacity of the work. I look forward to meeting Leonard Co.
I didn’t know that UP had an herbarium, was so excited that I showed up an hour earlier than scheduled and sat on the steps of Bio Pav where it was located, anxiously testing my tape and mp3 recorder and practically memorizing Leonard Co’s CV. Come the hour and I head straight to his office, eager to see neat stacks of specimen sheets—preserved Philippine plant specimens, browning, brittle, but carefully mounted on stiff white cardboard with their meticulously written specimen labels—then the species folders under the genus folders, and, finally, the herbarium cabinets. I knock, the door opens.
My heart sinks. The room looks more like the storage area for a newspaper drive. Surely this can’t be the herbarium. On top of a big table, Leonard Co’s work area, rises a great mound of old newspapers folded in half, and plant parts spill out of their makeshift folders.
“Hi,” somebody greets me. I turn and find my subject Leonard Co, in his white T-shirt and cargo pants, offering me his hand and a warm grin that still fails to hide his unease at this interview. I smile amiably back, shake his hand then, counting on the fact that I am a UP graduate back in UP with a UP professor, I go straight from impersonal to impertinent. “Sir, ito ang herbarium natin?” He relaxes, sits down, and gives a loud curse. “Oo! Ganyan kung paano natin pahalagahan ang science at botany dito [sa Pilipinas]!”
Over the course of our interview, Leonard rages against the lack of funding and support for science from the government, the non-scientific and halfhearted “green” projects of corporations that can potentially do more harm than good, and the restrictions being put on botanists doing conservation work because they are being accused of bio-prospecting and bio-piracy among others. I am disabused of all my romantic notions of plant systematics. In their place however is a growing admiration for a brilliant man who seems willing and up to the mammoth task of biodiversity conservation in the country.
We then proceed to talk about Rafflesia, a species of parasitic plant that I have to write about, and the fact that one species, Rafflesia leonardi, has been named after him by Dr. Julie Barcelona as a tribute to the taxonomist who is well known for his work on Philippine medicinal plants and is considered by many scientists as the best botanist in the country. He practically leaps from his chair, eager to show me the plaster of Paris model of Rafflesia leonardi that just arrived from the National Museum that morning. Two of his former students, one an apprentice, are present throughout the interview, and they seem to grow impatient with my questions. “Ask him about his first collection,” one suggests eagerly. A mammalogist who worked with him in the mountains and the rainforests of Northern Luzon shares how Leonard slipped and fell during a climb. He had his camera and laptop on him, but the first thing Leonard said was, “Ang mga specimens!” Dr. Barcelona, in a separate interview, tells of how she had to promise to take him to a population of Rafflesia in her province just to get him to attend her wedding.
Leonard admits, “Anything that’s not related to botany, sa akin distraction yan eh.” This singularity and sense of vocation is important. “The biological richness is so bewildering. We have limited resources, eh, ang lawak nito, saan ba natin i-invest?… Kailangan pa natin ng mga tao. Versus the volume of the work, ang conservation parang catch-up ka lagi. Before 2012 strikes! Repent! For the end is near!” He laughs heartily.
Last Monday, November 15, 2010, Leonard Co and his two companions, forest guard Sofronio G. Cortez, and Julius Borromeo, a member of the Tongonan Farmers Association, were caught in a crossfire between the military and members of the New People’s Army. They were gathering specimen seedlings of endangered native trees and were killed. Together with everyone involved in our book, I weep over this tragic loss. I reread the transcript of our interview and look at our interview tapes. I write this post in the present tense.
I dread the thought of going back to the manuscript, to his chapter, to revise it. And the dread is not just about getting the tenses right, although the pathos of it debilitates me right now, but writing it again knowing that an absence—definite, final, relentless—seals each revision. The interview took place a year ago, November 11, 2009. I am publishing here excerpts of our conversation as if an invocation.
On his childhood: Bata pa lang ako, mahilig na talaga ako sa pagkolekta ng anu-ano. Pero mas nauna ako na-interes sa mga shells, sa beetles. Natatandaan ko nun sa National Bookstore merong Golden Nature’s Guide. So, meron akong moth. Ikumpara ko sya. Oops, may konting resemblance. Elementary ako nito. Tapos kung meron pang nagtambak ng graba dun sa malapit sa amin, pupunta rin ako kasi meron din akong Rocks and Minerals. O, heto ay hornblend. Pero of course mali yung I.D. That’s the first attempt, the visual comparison. A natural curiosity. Natural talaga na gusto kong nagsi-systematize, nagka-classify ng mga bagay-bagay. Yung iba, hindi ko ma-kolekta, tulad ng constellations. And then in high school, I had one teacher sa biology sa Philippine Chinese High School, and this guy eventually became the world-renowned moss taxonomist Benito Tan. Siya pa yung dorm master. Every weekend aalis yun, akyatan kami ng bundok, kasama ako. Binigyan ako ni Benny ng kopya [ng Flora of Manila]. I think birthday gift. Dun ako nag-aral ng botanical terminology, and of course, bago ko ibigay yung specimen kay Mr. Hermes Gutierrez, i-try ko muna identify. Halimbawa bigay ko weekend, next week babalikan ko. Tapos makikita ko karamihan sa mga ina-identify ko mali. Minsan tumatama.
On his UP days: Ang tatay ko against sa idea ng botany. Ayaw niya. “You study botany—what for? Di ka yayaman diyan.” He wanted me to become an engineer. Eh, mahilig naman ako sa chemistry, so why not Chem Eng? Mahina ako sa Math. O, Chem na lang. First sem ko dito, bumagsak ako sa Math 17. Sabi nung adviser ko, “Naku Mr. Co, I think you better shift to another course. I don’t think you will survive.” “Oo nga ho, eh.” Mahina talaga ako sa Math. So nag-transfer na lang ako, botany naman talaga gusto ko eh. Di pa quota course yan kasi may pre-med pa nun eh. Madali ako nakapasok. Nalaman na lang ng tatay ko after two sems. So yun. Iba ang aral. Kasi ang gusto ko nasa labas. Last year lang ako nag-graduate. Yung time namin, those were turbulent times. Political activism. Nag-aaral, nag-e-exam mga ka-klase ko, nagmi-meeting kami. Pero kasi kahit namundok kami, we still had botany in the boondocks. Isa sa mga task ko dati sa health work ang traditional medicine. Kaya isa sa mga libro ko nga Medicinal Plants of the Cordillera. Alam mo one time na-destino ako sa Davao, sa isang guerrilla zone. Nakita ko dun ang libro namin. Tinranslate sa Bisaya. Yung trabaho namin nun, we translate acupuncture textbooks, medicinal plant manuals na ginagamit ng barefoot doctors because at that time, tinatanong namin: Science for whom? Science for the people.
On indigenous culture and botany: Marami tayong indigenous knowledge systems na deeply intertwined sa surroundings natin. And in fact, tanggalin mo ang plant lore sa isang kultura, yung traditional na kultura, mawawalan ng identity yang mga yan: mga alamat nila, mga sayaw nila. Sa Palawan nga nakakita ako ng mga ganyan eh. Mga ritwal nila sa pagkuha ng pukyutan, mga ritwal sa paggawa ng arrow poison. Ang conception nila ng disease causation, ang diagnosis nila, magkaiba yan sa bio-medicine…. Although hindi natin natututukan, sinasabi natin, nanganganib ang kanilang mga kultura, we are discussing this in general terms. Kasama ng pagkaubos ng biodiversity natin ay pagkaubos din ng traditional knowledge system.
On education and building awareness for conservation: The starting point is natural history appreciation. Hindi mo mamahalin ang isang bagay na hindi mo naiiintindihan. Mas lumalalim ang pagintindi mo, mas lumalalim ang concern mo.
On taxonomy: Taxonomy is not a haphazard remembering of names. We learn not through memorizing. You don’t memorize them. These are relational knowledge. Kagaya nito, walang pangalan, anong pamilya nito, ano ang mga katangian na nandito. Relational knowledge, parang, si Juan de la Cruz ay nakatira sa ganitong household, na belonging to this barangay, and so on. Sa lahat ng branches ng biology, taxonomy ang discipline with a sense of history. Ang systematics walang current literature diyan. Ang current literature namin dates back to 1753. Yung kay Linneaus. Eto rin ang pinaka-encyclopedic ang breadth. Yung volume ng alam mo kailangan malaki. Wala kaming concept of current literature. So, walang nalulumang literatura sa amin.
On his personal projects: These are personal projects that I need because malayo tayo sa botanical center so that any student of botany interested in the article, dowload mo na. … Why penalize researchers [by having them download per page] when you can download it as an entire pdf? So yung mga old documents, kinukuha ko na. Pati yung sa neighboring countries. The other one is a digital herbarium, arranged sila by famiy, and these are the specimens na pinagbatayan ng original descriptions. At open ang distribution nitong databases. Ginagawa ko din yung kay Merrill kasi yung last checklist natin nung 1923 pa. Heto yung literature citations, collection numbers. Gusto kong ilabas as hard print and afterwards as database on the Internet. This work is lifetime.
http://mabidavid.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/in-memoriam-leonard-co-1953-2010/
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Leonard, the ‘plant philanderer,’ lies among his treasures
Leonard, the ‘plant philanderer,’ lies among his treasures
MONDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2010 20:44 JEANMAIRE E. MOLINA, PHD
I FIRST met Sir Leonard almost 10 years ago through Chico, who was my plant taxonomy instructor. Sir Leonard, who was then botanist for Conservation International-Philippines, was recruiting volunteers to help with field work out in the remote jungles of Palanan, Isabela, which entailed a 10-hour bus ride from Manila to Cauayan, and then a 30-minute Cessna ride over the Northern Sierra Madres.
My mom was worried about the trip so we decided to ask him what it was really like being out there, especially the malaria situation. Sir Leonard replied matter-of-factly, “Ah, wag po kyo mag-alala. Lahat naman po ng field biologists may malaria [Don’t worry, all field biologists have malaria].” Hearing this, we immediately drove to Mercury Drug so that I can start my dose of Aralen, a malaria prophylactic.
This was Sir Leonard. So dedicated was he, that malaria did not deter him. He took pride in having two strains of it in his system. Nothing stopped him—a throng of wasps, a turbulent ride on the six-seater Cessna a.k.a. the flying coffin, Signal No. 5 typhoons, even a shotgun to his face by an NPA rebel. Just to give you a sense of how intense this person was: One time he slipped while wading in the Palanan stream, hit his back so bad, but instead of squealing in pain, he shouted, “Yung Eugenia ko. May flowers ’yon!”, to alert us to save his collected plant from drifting away with the stream currents. When he had it back in his hand, only then he did he shout, “aray!”
As a young boy, Sir Leonard already knew what he wanted to do with his life. A natural historian at heart, he was collecting anything he could, from stones, bugs to plants. At 12 he had transformed part of his room into a makeshift herbarium to house one of his first plant collections, Oryza sativa, better known to nonbotanists as rice. He was always fascinated by the diversity of life, and he knew plants were the scaffold that held it all together. He studied botany in college because he knew this was the only way he could get out into the woods, even joining the UP mountaineering club just so he could collect and add to his growing collection of dried plants. The mentorship of Benito Tan and Jose Vera Santos, two botany greats, only whetted his appetite even more—15,000 Philippine plant species and his dream was to know and catalogue every single one of it, and to make the world know of the Philippines’ incredible biodiversity before it was too late.
Sir Leonard’s energy and incredible, beyond-words type of love for botany and Philippine conservation were so strong that it just radiated out to anyone he met; and I can definitely speak for this, as well as my good friends, Sandra Yap, Hazel Consunji, Lorie Tongco, Ulysses Ferreras, and the dozens of other students he had touched one way or another. He was like a second father to us. He was “Tatay Chex” for Chekwa, our fond nickname for someone we adored. He was my dad in science, but I loved him like my own. He molded me into the person that I am now. He taught me everything I know about Philippine plants, which he knew like the palm of his hand. He was relentless in encouraging his students to pursue botany and conservation science, so that we can all fight for the cause of preserving every bit of Philippine biodiversity.
One thing that I will surely miss about him was his intimate knowledge of any Philippine plant species. There is no leaf or twig that you can show him that he won’t be able to give you the Latin name of, the shape of the scales or the hair type of its domatia, down to the pages of the Philippine Journal of Science where it was first published. If you ask him, “Sir, pano nyo po nalaman [How did you know that]?” He’d jokingly say, “Ah, binulong saken ni Merrill [Merrill whispered it to me].” Merrill was literally Sir’s American idol. He was an American botanist who devoted much of his life to the study of Philippine plants in the early 1900s. His portrait hangs in the herbarium, where Sir Leonard would sleep most of the time. This was Sir’s second home, after the forests. No offense Tita Glenda (Leonard’s wife), but Sir was a plant philanderer! One time I asked him, “Sir, alin po mas mahal nyo, si Tita Glends o ang halaman [Sir, who do you love more, Tita Glenda or your plants]”. He scratched his head, paused for a while, and said, “Ang hirap naman ng tanong mo [That’s a tough question].” So much was his love for his science that he also named his only daughter after Linneaus, the great Swedish botanist of the 1700s!
There is no other Filipino botanist who comes close to Sir Leonard. He was the best of the best. Bar-none. Passionate is even an understatement to describe him. He was a self-made man; everything he knew he pretty much learned by himself, better than any PhD I’ve ever known. His passing is not just a big loss to his loved ones, but more so, a catastrophic loss to this country. Whoever is culpable for this has done our nation a great disservice because I’ve never known anyone who knew our plants the way he did, who had so selflessly given up anything for the cause of Philippine conservation, without any regard at all for personal gain or self-prestige. He is indeed a national treasure, an unsung hero.
It is ironic that he died while collecting forest seeds for reforestation projects. Maybe somehow he knew that some of the seeds he had planted and nurtured 10 years ago are now ready to carry on his mission. I am one of those seeds and so are Sandra, Uly, Hazel, Lorie. Maybe it is time for us to plant our own seeds and train new students and enthuse others the way Sir Leonard did. May his death, instead of crippling the conservation movement, mobilize each one of us to continue fighting for our forests. This is the only way we can vindicate his death. This is the only way he would want to be remembered. We owe it to him, to ourselves and to this country. And as we leave here, may we all espouse the mantra he lived by, from the great Harvard sociobiologist, E.O. Wilson…
“Every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished and never to be surrendered without a struggle.”
Goodbye, Sir Leonard. I will really miss you. Thank you so, so much for giving me the invaluable opportunity to learn from you. We love you. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Molina, now attached to New York University, was one of Leonardo Co’s research assistants when he first set up the biodiversity project in Palanan, Isabela, in 2001. She and several other UP biology grads who saw his work up close in the forests have been coming back each year during breaks in postgraduate work abroad, to follow up on their projects. This was one of the eulogies for the late, preeminent botanist, whose death by what the military called a “crossfire” in Leyte last week has sparked outrage. His ashes were scattered in Palanan.
MONDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2010 20:44 JEANMAIRE E. MOLINA, PHD
I FIRST met Sir Leonard almost 10 years ago through Chico, who was my plant taxonomy instructor. Sir Leonard, who was then botanist for Conservation International-Philippines, was recruiting volunteers to help with field work out in the remote jungles of Palanan, Isabela, which entailed a 10-hour bus ride from Manila to Cauayan, and then a 30-minute Cessna ride over the Northern Sierra Madres.
My mom was worried about the trip so we decided to ask him what it was really like being out there, especially the malaria situation. Sir Leonard replied matter-of-factly, “Ah, wag po kyo mag-alala. Lahat naman po ng field biologists may malaria [Don’t worry, all field biologists have malaria].” Hearing this, we immediately drove to Mercury Drug so that I can start my dose of Aralen, a malaria prophylactic.
This was Sir Leonard. So dedicated was he, that malaria did not deter him. He took pride in having two strains of it in his system. Nothing stopped him—a throng of wasps, a turbulent ride on the six-seater Cessna a.k.a. the flying coffin, Signal No. 5 typhoons, even a shotgun to his face by an NPA rebel. Just to give you a sense of how intense this person was: One time he slipped while wading in the Palanan stream, hit his back so bad, but instead of squealing in pain, he shouted, “Yung Eugenia ko. May flowers ’yon!”, to alert us to save his collected plant from drifting away with the stream currents. When he had it back in his hand, only then he did he shout, “aray!”
As a young boy, Sir Leonard already knew what he wanted to do with his life. A natural historian at heart, he was collecting anything he could, from stones, bugs to plants. At 12 he had transformed part of his room into a makeshift herbarium to house one of his first plant collections, Oryza sativa, better known to nonbotanists as rice. He was always fascinated by the diversity of life, and he knew plants were the scaffold that held it all together. He studied botany in college because he knew this was the only way he could get out into the woods, even joining the UP mountaineering club just so he could collect and add to his growing collection of dried plants. The mentorship of Benito Tan and Jose Vera Santos, two botany greats, only whetted his appetite even more—15,000 Philippine plant species and his dream was to know and catalogue every single one of it, and to make the world know of the Philippines’ incredible biodiversity before it was too late.
Sir Leonard’s energy and incredible, beyond-words type of love for botany and Philippine conservation were so strong that it just radiated out to anyone he met; and I can definitely speak for this, as well as my good friends, Sandra Yap, Hazel Consunji, Lorie Tongco, Ulysses Ferreras, and the dozens of other students he had touched one way or another. He was like a second father to us. He was “Tatay Chex” for Chekwa, our fond nickname for someone we adored. He was my dad in science, but I loved him like my own. He molded me into the person that I am now. He taught me everything I know about Philippine plants, which he knew like the palm of his hand. He was relentless in encouraging his students to pursue botany and conservation science, so that we can all fight for the cause of preserving every bit of Philippine biodiversity.
One thing that I will surely miss about him was his intimate knowledge of any Philippine plant species. There is no leaf or twig that you can show him that he won’t be able to give you the Latin name of, the shape of the scales or the hair type of its domatia, down to the pages of the Philippine Journal of Science where it was first published. If you ask him, “Sir, pano nyo po nalaman [How did you know that]?” He’d jokingly say, “Ah, binulong saken ni Merrill [Merrill whispered it to me].” Merrill was literally Sir’s American idol. He was an American botanist who devoted much of his life to the study of Philippine plants in the early 1900s. His portrait hangs in the herbarium, where Sir Leonard would sleep most of the time. This was Sir’s second home, after the forests. No offense Tita Glenda (Leonard’s wife), but Sir was a plant philanderer! One time I asked him, “Sir, alin po mas mahal nyo, si Tita Glends o ang halaman [Sir, who do you love more, Tita Glenda or your plants]”. He scratched his head, paused for a while, and said, “Ang hirap naman ng tanong mo [That’s a tough question].” So much was his love for his science that he also named his only daughter after Linneaus, the great Swedish botanist of the 1700s!
There is no other Filipino botanist who comes close to Sir Leonard. He was the best of the best. Bar-none. Passionate is even an understatement to describe him. He was a self-made man; everything he knew he pretty much learned by himself, better than any PhD I’ve ever known. His passing is not just a big loss to his loved ones, but more so, a catastrophic loss to this country. Whoever is culpable for this has done our nation a great disservice because I’ve never known anyone who knew our plants the way he did, who had so selflessly given up anything for the cause of Philippine conservation, without any regard at all for personal gain or self-prestige. He is indeed a national treasure, an unsung hero.
It is ironic that he died while collecting forest seeds for reforestation projects. Maybe somehow he knew that some of the seeds he had planted and nurtured 10 years ago are now ready to carry on his mission. I am one of those seeds and so are Sandra, Uly, Hazel, Lorie. Maybe it is time for us to plant our own seeds and train new students and enthuse others the way Sir Leonard did. May his death, instead of crippling the conservation movement, mobilize each one of us to continue fighting for our forests. This is the only way we can vindicate his death. This is the only way he would want to be remembered. We owe it to him, to ourselves and to this country. And as we leave here, may we all espouse the mantra he lived by, from the great Harvard sociobiologist, E.O. Wilson…
“Every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished and never to be surrendered without a struggle.”
Goodbye, Sir Leonard. I will really miss you. Thank you so, so much for giving me the invaluable opportunity to learn from you. We love you. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Molina, now attached to New York University, was one of Leonardo Co’s research assistants when he first set up the biodiversity project in Palanan, Isabela, in 2001. She and several other UP biology grads who saw his work up close in the forests have been coming back each year during breaks in postgraduate work abroad, to follow up on their projects. This was one of the eulogies for the late, preeminent botanist, whose death by what the military called a “crossfire” in Leyte last week has sparked outrage. His ashes were scattered in Palanan.
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