By Lourdes M. Fernandez
Editor in Chief
BusinessMirror Sunday edition, Nov. 21, 2010
LONG before he started schooling, Leonardo Co loved the outdoors and would often come home dirty and with scratches, clutching "treasures" in his pants pocket----all sorts of stones and plants.
“Ewan ko ba, pero maliit pa iyan, gustong gusto niyang maglibot at tumingin sa mga halaman. Napaka-curious niyang bata. Nung lumaon, dahil palagi niyang sabing inaaral niya ang mga halaman at gagawa siya ng experiment dito, tinawag siya ng mga kaibigan at kaklase na 'sayang-tist' [I don't know why, but even at a tender age he loved to check out plants everywhere he went. He was so curious. Soon, because he kept saying he'll do experiments with them his friends and classmates called him 'sayang -tist'],” said his mother, Emelina Co, referring to a play of words on the boy from Tagudin, Ilocos Sur, who would grow up to be a respected scientist with admirers from around the world.
It was only during the wake for the botanist, slain in what the military called a “crossfire” in a forested hill in Leyte this week, that Emelina said she and her husband, Lian Seng Co, realized how far this obsession with plants had taken their eldest, and only, son.
The afternoon that BusinessMirror paid its respects to the man described widely as “one of the Philippines' top botanists,” his 85- year old father and two of five sisters were finalizing arrangements for the transfer of his remains from Funeraria Paz to the University of the Philippines for Saturday's necrological rites. Their plans had been altered by information that an autopsy was to be conducted on Co, because of conflicting versions of what really happened, as provided by the military and one of two companions of Co who survived the shooting.
The students, UP colleagues, as well as foreign scientists and conservationists at Co's wake on Friday were also torn with grief over the death of another admired botanist---his best friend Dan Lagunzad, who died of cancer just one day after bullets felled Co.
'Not just Filipinos' loss, but the world's'
AMONG those in the crowd who came to pay their respects was New York University post-graduate research scientist Jeanmaire Molina, a UP graduate who had served, for many years, as Co's research assistant in the special biodiversity project he helped set up and nurtured in Palanan, Isabela. Molina, who like her classmate Sandra Yap credited Co with helping get them started in obtaining post-grad studies abroad (both UP girls have PhD's) rushed home on news that their mentor, the man they considered their second father, had died an untimely, tragic death in the forests he loved all his life.
Since 2001, Co and some of his students and research assistants had cared for a precious plot in a site identified as one of the last biodiversity frontiers in the Philippines. The area has since doubled, and was at one time funded by a World Bank affiliate. It is one of a chain of biodiversity plots set up around the world by scientists and conservationists anxious about preserving what may very well hold the future of life on earth.
Dr. James V. LaFrankie, a colleague of Co who is based in La Union, said Co was “simply irreplaceable” in terms of both his commitment and his store of skills and experience. He repeated a phrase often used to describe Co: “a walking encyclopedia on Philippine plants,” and added that right after learning of the botanist's death in Leyte, he and colleagues from around the world all reacted with panic, “who we gonna call?” next time they need to consult on Philippine flora.
“He knew about Philippine plants more than anyone we know. Consider there are 10,000 different kinds of flowering plants in the Philippines. At age 56, you could fairly presume that someone like Leonard had a body of knowledge that was simply irreplaceable.
'A very honest man'
According to LaFrankie, who went to Co's wake on three successive days, Co was respected by foreign scientists and institutions “because he was a very honest man.” He was always “very careful, very precise” in dishing out information, disdained fluff or borderline claims in reports, and would very frankly tell an inquiring party 'I don't know' if he wasn't sure about something, though he'd be considerate enough to say he'll help the party look into it.
To illustrate the level of professional respect Co enjoyed, LaFrankie cited world-class institutions such as the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard, the Kew Gardens in London and the Leiden in The Netherlands as among those that regularly consult the UP botanist.
Many of the foreign botanists sought him out because, whenever they came to the country, they knew exactly where to go and didn't lose precious time because Co would point them to the right place, depending on what they were interested to look at.
Though he had lots of friends in academe in Asean countries, Co had really focused most of his time and effort on Philippine flora--- which is rich and diverse enough, “with 7,100 islands,” to occupy a lifetime, noted LaFrankie.
Other colleagues had earlier noted Co seemed always racing against time to identify and tag plants across the archipelago, as if he had been given that task to give all creation a name. In Co's view, creation is for everyone, and it was his lifelong passion to help other scientists find ways to use plants to heal and nourish people. Some of his young followers, who had been returning to their Palanan, Isabela nursery each summer break from post-grad work abroad, tapping modest grants to help sustain it, had once confessed a dream they shared with the idealistic teacher: find a plant-based vaccine for dengue that can be available to millions of people around the world.
Yakking on Globe 'unli' for 2 hours
It's a measure of how much Co loved the Palanan plot that he had earlier told loved ones to spread some of his ashes over it if he dies---a wish he will soon get. In October, just before supertyphoon “Juan” struck, Co reportedly gave friends a scare because he stayed on the mountain even though meteorologists had forecast a direct hit on Isabela province. One Facebook posting after his death showed a smiling professor tending to his “babies,” the plants in the nursery, on the eve of the typhoon, preparing to batten down the place.
As LaFrankie recalled it, Co had apparently been staying at the mountaintop---accessible only by chopper or the “flying coffin” that research associates called their Cessna---days before the typhoon struck, and was updating his inventory and data files. “He was so excited about some of his new finds; it seems he had a new cell phone, and was eager to use his Globe 'unli' so he called me and started yakking about his plants for, I think, two hours.”
After the supertyphoon, when friends started to inquire about how he survived the storm, the story just went around that Co “tied himself to a tree.” Whatever happened, no one was surprised he could survive that, “because the forest was his life. Being with plants gave him the greatest joy.” It is thus so shocking for them to accept that he would be felled by bullets just for being with what he loved best.
Honor him with the truth
If the story of Leonard atop his beloved Palanan mountain during a supertyphoon amused his adoring friends and relatives, the still - unknown truth about what really happened to him in that heavily forested area in Leyte, on that fateful
Monday, is something that haunts them.
“Sana sabihin lang nila ang totoo. Huwag na silang magsinungaling. At huwag silang magbintang. Kung may nagkamali, aminin na lang. [I wish they'd just tell the truth, and not lie or blame the innocent. If someone erred, they must own up to their mistake],” said his father Lian Seng Co, 85, alluding to reports that there was really no crossfire because there was no encounter; and soldiers simply mistook Co's team for rebels. The old man had sobbed after kissing Leonard's image on the editorial cartoon in the BusinessMirror, and whispered quietly, “dapat sana ako nauna kay Boy [I should have gone ahead of my son Boy].”
The plea for the truth brings to mind a line in the Denzel Washington-Meg Ryan starrer “Courage under fire,” where Denzel, after finally putting together the authentic account of what went down in a forbidding desert in Iraq where a courageous US pilot had apparently been killed by friendly fire, said of the report, “If we wish to honor her courage, we can only honor her with the truth.”
No one can bring back what was lost with the death of the country's preeminent botanist. But if he lived all his 56 years teaching us eternal truths about life, creation and stewardship, the least he deserves is the truth about what happened on Monday.
Only the truth can teach us to avoid having the same tragedy befall the precious few young scientists who have followed in his footsteps.
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