Leonard Co

Pinoy Kasi
By Michael Tan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:20:00 12/01/2010

LEONARD CO’S life (which lasted a few weeks short of 57 years) was much too brief, but it was a life that overflowed with professional accomplishments and friendships.

Friends are ephemeral, ships passing by in the night as the saying goes. Leonard built friendships that spanned the years.

I knew him from the 1970s, the days of the dictatorship, working with community-based health programs that organized impoverished villages to improve their health care. Our common interest was medicinal plants, which the health programs were trying to promote for many reasons. There were the very practical considerations of medicinal plants being abundant, many quite effective, yet under-utilized. But there was more to the medicinal plants: In those very political days, medicinal plants were also a statement, speaking of nationalism, and self-reliance, a small but significant way of challenging the dominance of Western multinational drug companies.

As political involvement went in those days, we didn’t ask each other too many personal questions. I never met his family, never even knew where he lived. I had gotten to know him in Baguio, and knew he was always on the move, roaming the mountains collecting plants and identifying them.

Chinese doctor
His knowledge of medicinal plants was phenomenal, and not just in terms of botany. He was, really, a self-trained Chinese doctor. He devoured Chinese medical books, convinced that the right way to go with developing medicinal plants in the Philippines was to look at what the Chinese already knew. He would look up plants common to both China and the Philippines, and knew their properties in terms of Chinese medicine—this one “heat-dispelling,” the other “liver-nurturing,” for example.

I came to the plants from a different perspective. I had been assigned by the health programs to gather information from albularyos, and then look up whatever scientific research that had been done, especially around its chemicals.

Leonard had already compiled “A Manual on Some Philippine Medicinal Plants” (1977). There were beautiful illustrations accompanying botanical descriptions as well as medicinal uses, and the properties from Chinese medicine. It was an intriguing approach and I forced myself to relearn Chinese to be able to read Chinese books on traditional medicine, at least to pick out the plants that seemed to have the most potential.

Leonard was far more proficient with the plants, because both of his botanical background and his ability to read Chinese. He continued to work on medicinal plants for many more years, eventually authoring “Common Medicinal Plants of the Cordillera Region.” Although officially classified as a botany book (“QK 99” in the Library of Congress system), it could well have been classified as well under medicine, pharmacy or even anthropology. Packed into 487 pages are detailed descriptions of the plants, with even more lavish illustrations than the ones in the UP Botanical society manual, together with the plants’ uses, and types of preparations and doses.

Even more fascinating is a whole section on collecting and processing the plants into powders, syrups, tinctures, decoctions and even pills. The wealth of information in Leonard’s book is still used today in community-based health programs throughout the country.

Conservation
I rarely saw Leonard after the book came out, but our paths crossed many times. He eventually moved on to environmental conservation, where he made his mark as a taxonomist, a person who identifies and classifies plants. He worked for Conservation International, and while the office was once right next to a health NGO I was connected with, we rarely saw each other. He was often out in the field, with assignments stretching over several weeks, even months.

I heard more of Leonard than saw him, usually anecdotes about his encyclopedic knowledge of plants, and more importantly his passion for science. They were stories I heard again during the memorial services, including one about how he had called out, “Oh my Eugenia!” as he was almost being swept away by strong river currents, Eugenia being the scientific name of a group of plants, specimens of which he had just gathered. There was Leonard the nerd, the excitement at stumbling on ferns, which were his specialty, and launching a soliloquy to pay homage to the plants’ elegance.

The stories were about Leonard the person, much loved and respected. He was famous for his generosity with friends and students; yet he was also known for his simplicity, in particular his trademark Chinese cloth shoes. There was Leonard the entertainer, full of humor and wit and which didn’t exclude poking fun at himself, for example, his “membership” in the Ho Chi Minh Society, together with feigned lamentations about possibly ending up a perpetual bachelor like his idol. Eventually he did marry, and had a daughter, named after the Swedish scientist Linnaeus.

Rafflesia leonardi
In the era of texting, I could send a message to Leonard: “What’s the scientific name of that tree in front of the main library with bright yellow blossoms?” He would reply, giving a local, as well as the scientific name, and I could envision him again, his mind running through the botanical details like a computer.

Low-key as he was, his work did not go unrecognized. He was in demand among environmental conservationists and members of the academe. In 2008, he had a plant named after him, Rafflesia leonardi, and of course, he had to joke about that too, Rafflesia being known for its not too pleasant odor.

Two years ago, I had to give the keynote speech at the recognition ceremonies of the UP College of Science in Diliman. (Recognition ceremonies are smaller college-based ceremonies preceding the large university commencement.) I was surprised, and thrilled, to learn that Leonard was among the graduates. Through the 30-plus years I had known Leonard, I never knew he had not gotten his BS degree, his main stumbling block being a physics subject. The botany degree he was working on had long been abolished, so UP gave him a degree in biology. Given all that he had accomplished, he should have been given a doctorate, honoris causa.

I begged off speaking at two of Leonard’s memorial meetings, one at Funeraria Paz, and the other at the UP Church of the Risen Lord, so I’m going to make up by doing two columns—still all too little for someone who did so much in his lifetime. Bear with me again on Friday as I write about the meaning of the life and death of this scientist, nationalist and patriot.