Manobos decorate RP's tallest tree for Christmas

Members of a tribe in Mindanao are now preparing one of the Philippines' tallest trees to become the country's tallest Christmas tree. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines reported Saturday the Manobo tribe is decorating the giant Toog tree with 1,001 Christmas lights.

"But before the official 'switching on' of the thousand-and-one Christmas lights decorating the natural-grown giant of a tree, the tribes folk will first perform a ritual asking the permission of the spirits to allow them to 'energize' the tree, which once grew in abundance all over Agusan del Sur," the CBCP said in its news site Saturday. The lighting of the giant Christmas tree will signal the official start of the Christmas season in Barangay Alegria, which hosts the “third tallest tree in the world." Gov. Adolph Edward Plaza is expected to formally unveil the Toog Christmas Tree, touted as the tallest Christmas Tree in the country. The Toog tree, which grows just beside the national highway in Alegria, was recorded to be 65 meters (280 feet) high. Following its unveiling on October 18, it will officially surpass Tagum’s famous Christmas Tree, which once held the record as the Philippines’ tallest Christmas Tree at 153 feet. "Gov. Plaza has ordered his chief-of-staff to have the tree officially measured," the CBCP said. From afar, commuters can easily see the Toog tree. Mayor Jenny de Asis said the “Toog Christmas Tree project" is the initiative of the officials of Barangay Alegria. Following the publication by a Cagayan de Oro City-based local daily of the picture of the giant tree, hundreds of commuters and visitors and passersby would stop and stare at it in awe. Some even had their pictures taken before the giant tree. The Toog tree (Petersianthus quadrialatus) or Philippine Rosewood is also known as Kapullan in the Visayas region or Magtalisai in the Samar-Leyte area. It belongs to the Lecythidaceae family. It is a deciduous, medium-sized to fairly large tree that grows up to more than 40 meters tall and more than 100 cm in diameter. The trunk is straight, cylindrical, branch-less with a length of 20-30 meters. In the Philippines, it is considered a vanishing timber. Alegria barangay chairman Solomon Rufila believes the tree has survived for more than one hundred years and is considered a living memento from the past and a testimony to the love of the people of Alegria to protect the environment, a local reporter on Saturday told GMANews.TV. Rufila and his brother Engineer Cesar Rufila introduced the idea to the barangay council that the Toog tree be decorated as a living Christmas tree. The council accepted the idea and solicited funds from businessmen and other wealthy individuals throughout San Francisco to buy the trimmings and other gadgets to beautify the tree. Work on the tree began on the second week of September with the festooning of different colored light bulbs around it. A villager named Egie volunteered to lug the wire with the light bulbs and climbed the three to the top where he spent two hours to complete his task. Below, some 30 other volunteers wound and strung the small light bulbs. The initial lighting of the 420 sets of 100 Christmas light bulbs of various colors was made on September 27. On that day, Manobo datus and their abyans led by their most influential leader Datu Bardo Bando, popularly known as Kumander Kalbo, presided over a tribal ritual to invoke the good will of the spirits living on the tree. Kagawad Trinidad S. Cuyubao told a local newspaper Periodico News Network (PNN) that hundreds of people within and outside the village turned out en masse to gaze at the blinking colorful display that night of Sept 27. — with a report by Margarita Candido/LBG, GMANews.TV