A new elevated superhighway is to be built in Manila’s old district of Ermita and two hundred old trees have been cut in preparation for its construction. Before still bleeding stumps, environmental activists held a series of protest actions, successfully forcing the government to suspend the remaining 600 or more decade-old trees.
With noontime temperatures regularly flirting at near 50-degree levels, the activists argue that the sweltering Philippine capital needs more trees than roads. Private developers and the government, however, contend that the new infrastructure would ease traffic on Manila’s notoriously gridlocked roads.
Whose arguments are more compelling?
Faster motor traffic
A new elevated road is being built to connect old Manila to access points leading out of the metropolis. The Southern Access Link Expressway (SALEX) is a 40.65-km network proposed by the country’s busiest road builder, San Miguel Corporation (SMC), to link Roxas Boulevard and Road-10 with the proposed Shoreline Expressway, another planned highway.
The proponents glowingly describe the project as designed to accommodate up to 300,000 vehicles daily, mirroring that of the capacity of SMC’s Skyway that earns about P65 million n daily toll revenues. The company said the project’s goal is to ease future traffic in Metro Manila and Central Luzon, boost economic development in the region, and give motorists direct access to the New Manila International Airport, known as the Bulacan Airport, which is currently under construction.
Aside from Skyway’s four stages, SMC operates three other expressways and planning four others. The mega-company was also forced to suspend its planned expressway over the length of Pasig River and reports indicate that it is withdrawing from its planned bridge connective famed tourist destination Boracay Island to mainland Panay Island.
SMC’s Infrastructure Division recorded P14.8 billion in net income and P40.2 billion in total revenues in 2025 alone, a true giant.
SMC’s Construction of the 3.97-km SALEX’s Quirino Avenue segment is underway where nearly a thousand trees have suddenly become inconvenient.
Protector to apologist
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued the tree-cutting permit, justifying its decision by saying not all tree-cutting activities are forbidden.
DENR secretary Juan Miguel Cuna himself said defends the felling of hundreds of mature, full-canopy trees is an “inevitable trade-off” for the convenience the connecting road would bring. The tree-cutting permit required a replacement ratio of 100 seedlings for every mature tree cut, he added.
The agency also said earth-balling or transplanting the trees is impractical and cutting the trees is the only way for infrastructure projects to continue.
“We assure the public that the DENR is closely supervising every phase of the activity and enforcing all safeguards,” the agency said in a statement. “We assure the public that the DENR is closely supervising every phase of the activity and enforcing all safeguards,” the agency said in a statement.
But the tree-cutting activities suffered significant local backlash, forcing the DENR and SMC to temporarily stop chopping the remaining trees standing.
Protests to protect the remaining trees
Various environmental groups have held nearly daily protest actions to condemn what they say is a DENR-SMC collusion to deprive Manila of one of its last major tree-lined roads. Even Catholic Church leaders have joined the fray, lending their formidable institutional voice on the side of caution.
Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, president of Caritas Philippines, condemned the cutting of decades-old trees as “an act of ecological violence” against the people of Manila. “The mass cutting of decades-old trees along Quirino Avenue is an act of ecological violence against the people of Manila, a direct assault on the poor who have been enduring the daily penance of extreme heat, poisoned air, and sudden floods,” Alminaza said in a May 25 stat.
Bottom of Form
Bishop Alminaza pointed out the trees had provided shade, cleaner air, and flood protection for generations of commuters and residents in the area. The felling of the trees have reduced the trees to “bleeding stumps to make way for another expressway under the disguise of progress.”
Environmental network Kalikasan PNE welcomed the suspension but questioned why authorities intervened only after hundreds of trees had already been cut. “Why only now? Why was it suspended and reviewed only after more than 200 trees had already been cut?” Kalikasan spokesperson Cathleen de Guzman said.
The only way for the DENR to redeem itself is to permanently stop more tree-cutting and to instigate restitution for the felled ones. “A suspension is not enough. Projects that destroy the environment and people’s livelihoods must be permanently stopped,” the group said.
Greenpeace Philippines also criticized the project, saying the destruction of mature urban trees during a worsening climate crisis would intensify heat, flooding, and environmental vulnerability, especially among low-income communities in Metro Manila.
Another bureaucrat capitalism showcase
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) said the cutting of trees, was a massacre that, while “lawful” highlights the extent of corruption in the bureaucracy.
The group said the massacre shows bureaucrat capitalism “in the same way that permits granted for anomalous flood-control/pork barrel projects were legal before they were found out.
“[It is a] pernicious use of laws and legal processes to enable the systematic theft of public funds and the approval of destructive projects,” BAYAN secretary general Raymond Palatino said.
“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,” Palatino explained.
Meanwhile, the DENR made a show of balling two narra trees along Quirino Avenue on Thursday and transferring it to a garden near Manila City Hall. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
