It is clear that rock superstar Sting, who is also known for his advocacies for the environment, was misled by local environmental activists and deliberately fed wrong information.

Sting obviously did not validate the allegations in the letter of a member of “Project Save 182” which opposed the balling and transfer of 182 trees for the planned SM Baguio Redevelopment when he decided to move his one-night concert at the SM Mall of Asia Arena scheduled on December 9 to Araneta Coliseum.

If Sting and his agents made even a cursory attempt to check the facts of the issue, they would have found out that the allegations in the letter which talked of the “SM plans to CUT DOWN 182 fully grown tree” which “defied” a court order and done surreptitiously “in the dead of the night” were all erroneous and deceptive.

What the letter-writer did not tell Sting is that the number of trees involved in the whole brouhaha is only 182 pine and alnus trees out of some 2,000 trees in the SM Baguio complex. The letter even made the outright false allegation that the 182 will be cut down when in fact the trees were earth balled and would be transferred to another viable location.

This is not surprising since at the height of the controversy about the balling of the 182 trees, the environmental groups opposed to it tried to give the general public the impression that SM is cutting all the trees in the Cordillera mountain range.

The letter to Sting also made a big to do of the alleged defiance by SM of a temporary environmental protection order issued by a Baguio court last April 9 and continued with its earth balling operations. The letter writer ignored the explanation by SM—accepted by the

court—that SM did not receive the TEPO immediately and that it sent a representative to the court to get a copy of the order on April 11. When SM officially got a copy of the TEPO, the earth-balling operation stopped.

The letter writer, not so surprisingly, repeated the accusation about SM Baguio secretly earth balling at night to hide what it is doing from the public. The accusation made good news fodder but turned out to be false.

The fact was that the earth balling at night was an order of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the department’s officers were there to supervise it. Environment Undersecretary Demetrio Ignacio explained that trees that are being balled have bigger chances of survival when balled at night when it’s cooler and there is less stress on the trees.

SM, because it is big, is a natural target but it would seem that the Baguio project is a wrong environment issue to raise against it.

It appears that SM already anticipated the sensitivity of the expansion and development project which is also being undertaken, according to SM Supermalls Inc. president Annie Garcia, as a long term solution to the erosion issue for the whole SM Baguio complex. Erosion of course could threaten SM’s main structures.

Garcia says rip-rapping has been proven inadequate. Experts have advised SM to do a more extensive solution to the erosion problem and the extension would do this by serving as an integral part of an engineered retaining wall.

The SM executive has pointed out that the SM redevelopment project has taken into consideration all the environmental issues and the design for the P1.2-billion project has been certified as eco-friendly by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and internationally-recognized standard for green-building and construction developed by the US Green Building Council.

Minus the emotions the critics of the SM Baguio, the earth-balling exercise for the trees affected by the development has not raised any real and valid issue.

Understandably, the critics of SM are trying to downplay the fact that as a condition for the permit for the earth balling and transfer of the 182 trees affected by the redevelopment project, SM is required to plant over 50,000 trees in areas in Baguio and Benguet designated by the DENR.

DENR had admitted that this is over and above the usual requirement. SM has in fact already planted more than 7,000 trees in Baguio City alone and 15,000 trees in the entire Benguet province.

It is unfortunate and sad that the supposed pro-environment activists are continuing to resort to hyperbole and outright disinformation in their campaign against SM on the tree balling issue. In the long run, such tactics would boomerang and would cast doubts on the pro-environment groups’ well-meaning campaign to save and protect the environment.