by George Banez
”Oh, you weren’t even born yet the second time I went to jail,” said Tatang as he lounged on a wooden platform raised two feet above the dirt floor of the “cottage.” Made of bamboo, the cottage was the kitchen-dining hall for the staff, now reduced to five hardy men. They remained to keep planting trees and to maintain what was left of the nature park planned for the Irawan forest reserve. Tatang, a former employee stayed because he did not have anywhere else to go.
Tatang, not his name but an honorific for an elderly man, had just asked me my age. After our 5 P.M. dinner, I lingered for small talk in the kitchen-cottage where he apparently slept. Lying on his back, Tatang fished out the mounted print of a painting of dogs in positions suggestive of human reproduction.
Without breaking into a smile, Tatang held the poster up. He silently stared menacingly with glassy eyes. Ominous, but I thought his strength, or lack thereof, could not have possibly supported his intentions. The prank did not bother me as much as hearing that he had been to jail twice before I was born. I hurried back to my lodging.
Fortunately, I had a room to myself in the empty “staff-house” intended for guests coming from Puerto Princesa, the capital of the Palawan Island province. The house was the only building-structure in the forest. It doubled as reception and office spaces for the “Irawan Flora and Fauna Watershed Reserve.” Made with hardwood, the house sat high on stilts. It had a big balcony where I later sorted the plant samples I was there to gather in ten days.
Three of the six men slept in one of the four rooms of the building, but only on weeknights. Outhouses were tucked away downstairs, somewhere out of sight. But I had to bathe outdoors by first drawing water from the well pump next to the entrance stairs to the house. Ironically, the unspoiled Irawan River, one of the park’s intended attractions, was twenty feet away, hidden by vegetation a few rocky steps down. Yet the men advised against going there for a dip by myself.
Homicide
“Yes,” replied one of three men staying the night in the staff house. He confirmed that Tatang had indeed been incarcerated more than once. So, I asked what for. “Homicide,” said another housemate whom I had also just met that day. “He killed someone (again),” this housemate calmly said when I asked why Tatang went back a second time.
Something about their smiles told me they were not lying. After asking twice for confirmation, the third housemate who seemed to command respect the most said: “Your room has a door you can lock.” Then all three left to go drinking at a nearby cluster of houses along the dirt road, some 30-minute walk away.
In 1990, traveling to Palawan, the only remaining forested island in the Philippines, required precautions. Days before flying, I took malaria prophylactics. As advised, I ate as much as I could of the food they served me. “You can’t go hungry or you’ll get sick,” everybody said. After dinner I re-applied the stinky insect repellant and laid on the floor mat under the mosquito net I brought.
Healthy and in my mid 20s, I had the confidence to go there alone to collect data for my thesis. Parasites carried by mosquitoes were the least of my worries that night. Even in total darkness and the lullaby of chirping creatures, I could not sleep. The odor of a passing “Pantot,” the Palawan stink badger (Mydaus marchie), reminded me that I was still alive. But I could not tell if I only dreamt hearing the men laugh, argue, and then yell at someone for trying to go upstairs. Maybe they made noise to wake me up, in case I needed to escape or defend myself.
For Plants Sake
“How did I end up here?” I thought. But I did not want to give up and flee. “There’s no way I’m going back empty handed.” My masteral thesis adviser, Dr. Domingo Madulid, sent me over. He was the head of the Botany and National Herbarium Division of the National Museum of the Philippines. At that time, he had just set-up a one-hectare (2.47 acres) forest plot in Irawan with Dr. Djaja D. Soejarto. The Indonesian born Harvard-trained botanist had the support of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to scour tropical forests for medicinal plants. Soejarto was looking for phytochemicals useful in fighting cancer and the then still fatal HIV-AIDS.
Earlier in 1987, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University through the NCI supported University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) project worked with the Forests Department of Sarawak (Malaysia) in the island of Borneo. Together, they collected plant samples from the lowland and alluvial (swamp) forests. Upon screening for potential anti-tumor phytochemicals, the samples of tree bark, twigs, flowers, and leaves tested negative.
By 1991, routine testing for anti-viral properties in the samples showed Callophyllum lanigerum extracts exhibiting activity against HIV. Soejarto, who had been with the UIC department of pharmacology since 1983, returned to Sarawak to find the tree in 1992. But the source tree, identified as Callophyllum lanigerum var. austrocoriaceum, was gone. It had been cut down. So, Soejarto collected and tested samples from other Callophyllum species around.
Soejarto and team found Anti-HIV compounds Calanolide A and B from these Callophyllum species. Soejarto would later find anticancer compounds, phyllanthusmins C and D, from Phyllanthus poilanei collected in Vietnam. From 1998, he led the Vietnam-Laos International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG) that ushered the discovery in 2014 of bioactive compounds against tuberculosis. From 2005 he worked with Maasai indigenous people to explore anti-malarial therapeutics.
“Seeing the Forest for Trees”
These discoveries were years away from my first night in Irawan in 1990. And although I would meet Soejarto on a subsequent collection trip with Madulid, I had no direct involvement with the NCI project. Except for Soejarto letting me use their plot and I helping to coordinate sample collection and processing, I worked independently.
I received funding support from the Haribon Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources Inc. The grant paid for part of the costs to travel, hire two local guides, buy research provisions, and provide food for everyone. Naturally, I was committed to see this research through.
The one-hectare forest plot, located around 300 m (984 feet) in elevation, had been marked. The twenty subplots of 25m by 20m had also been set. Arranged side by side along the trail, this “belt transect” facilitated systematic data collection. Still, the plot was 2.5 football fields big, and over an hour’s climb from the staff house.
My assignment was to complete painting numbers on each tree of at least 10 cm (3.94 in) trunk diameter at breast height. There were 588 of them. Since this was before consumer Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping software, I had to map by hand the location of each tree.
Together with my guide and field assistant Rey Majaducon and his cousin, we collected samples of leaves, branches, and bark from every tree. My research goal was to describe the forest within the plot. I wanted to know if a hectare of a mid elevation forest, accessible to illegal logging, was still diverse. How many species were there? Which, if any, was dominant? What kind of trees thrived? How big or tall? How do they fit in three-dimensional space? What was the forest structure?
Those basic questions led to more queries: how do different tree species interact as they compete for resources, provide food for others, and reproduce? These interactions determine the survival of the whole forest. Conserving biodiversity, or keeping species from disappearing, is important because a diverse tropical forest is a stable one.
Reading what I wrote in 1991, protecting the forest of Irawan from more logging may have been why it was declared part of the Iwahig Penal Colony. Known today as Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm, it currently houses 4,000 inmates. Starting as a “settlement” of 8.9 hectares (22 acres) in 1904, Iwahig is now around 36,000 hectares (88,958 acres) of wilderness and farm lots for inmates to cultivate. It was far too big then for fences, as it is now. While the forest may have served as a barrier, it was homesteading opportunities the kept innates were returning voluntarily to after “excursions” to the city center.
In 1982, the forest added to Iwahig became the “Irawan Flora, Fauna, and Watershed Reserve.” There, in 1990, I met Tatang. He came out of the Iwahig prison system. Tatang did not help me accomplish my research objectives. But he made field work exciting and unforgettable. I went back for more.
About the Author:
George Banez is a writer of Filipino descent and is a retired non-profit professional living in Florida.