By Leila B. Salaverria
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 18:56:00 11/20/2010
MANILA, Philippines—Botanist and plant taxonomist Leonardo Co may have found his calling in the wild, but there was one place he considered his home.
Co returned to that cherished site on Saturday—the University of the Philippines in Diliman—accompanied by family, friends and co-workers who celebrated his life and his works, through which he would continue to live, even as they cried for justice.
Co may have trekked mountains, climbed trees and hiked through woods throughout the country as he studied plant life, but the state university was a place to where he always returned.
On Saturday, UP's son came home.
Co's coffin was taken out and placed as an offering in front of the UP Oblation, the iconic university statue depicting a naked man facing upward with his arms outstretched.
UP officials and personnel, including Chancellor Sergio Cao, welcomed him and paid tribute. UP President Emerlinda Roman was also present earlier in the day.
“Leonard is a true son of UP,” Ong said. “One of your sons has returned, fulfilling the exhortations of the oblation to serve the people.”
The 56-year-old Co and companions Sofronio Cortez and Julius Borromeo were killed when they were supposedly caught in a volley of gunfire between soldiers and rebels in the forests of Kananga, Leyte, on Monday. But doubts have cropped up about this version of events, especially after a witness said he did not hear answering gunfire. Investigations are expected.
Ong said Co always went back to the university, no matter where he went.
“Since he entered UP in 1972, he never left. No matter where he worked, he always went back to the herbarium,” Ong said, referring to the patch of plants and herbs for which Co had essentially stood as the curator.
Co will always be a part of UP, and not just his spirit. After his cremation, a third of his ashes would be given to the UP Institute of Biology and would be scattered under one of the trees on campus.
Another third would be scattered in Palanan, Isabela, the site of the forest that he had studied so ardently. The rest would remain with his family.
Co did not get his degree until 2008 since he was always out in the field. He also holds the distinction of being the only BS Botany graduate who did not submit a thesis. In lieu of a thesis, he submitted his book on the medicinal plants of the Cordillera Mountains.
Throughout the years, he was a constant presence in UP. Even without any formal appointment papers, he worked there and attended faculty meetings, and no one questioned his presence.
Colleagues remember his expertise well, saying that he could usually point to a plant and give its scientific name and species.
He was so dedicated a taxonomist that he named his young daughter Linnaei Marie, with wife, Glenda, after the father of taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus.
Co would also live on in the Rafflesia Leonardi, an endemic parasitic plant species and one of the biggest flowers in the Philippines, which was named after him.
Julie Barcelona, a botanist who had named “one of the most beautiful rafflesia” after Co, said that he had once told her that he felt like he was the Van Gogh of botany.
“My worth and the things I have done will be appreciated more after I'm dead,” Barcelona recalled Co as saying. But she said she made sure to let Co know that he was very much appreciated.
And to hear his colleagues and friends tell it, the coffee, cooking and harmonica-loving Co was a very valuable presence to them—as a botanist and as a friend—when he was still alive.
On Saturday, in tribute programs at the UP, they poured out their gratitude for being part of his life.
Jim La Frankie, a scientist who had worked with Co, said the slain botanist reminded him of the Mother Theresa quote that she was a “little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.”
“When I think of Leonardo, I remember him as a love letter to the world,” La Frankie said.
He said Co wanted to help and be part of something bigger than himself, and was not a self-centered man.
As a scientist, Co was excellent. He was always a “truth teller about plants, and everybody else was second place,” he added.
Ang Pot, Co's childhood friend, recalled that the botanist passionately wanted science to be relevant and to help people, hence his focus on the medicinal uses of plants.
He said that Co may not have gotten stellar marks in class, but what he set out to accomplish proved far greater than what his other classmates did.
Co was invited thrice to Harvard University, where his enthusiasm for studying the Philippine flora proved remarkable, as attested to by a letter from Emily Wood, senior collections associate of Harvard.
Stuart Davies, of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, also remembered Co as an industrious man who worked well into the night documenting the plants he got.
Vic Amoroso of the Central Mindanao University said Co always carried a “sungkit,” or stick, for collecting specimens and always shared whatever he had.
Mundita Lim of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, wept as she recalled how Co, as well as botanist Daniel Lagunzad, were her “secret weapons” whenever she needed data about plants.
Emilio Sotalbo, who has retired as the director of the Campus Maintenance Office, said Co was so persistent in going after specimens that he once climbed up a tree quickly. But when he was up on the tree, he called down to Sotalbo, not knowing how he would get back on the ground.
Co's loved ones also laughingly recalled how the botanist had a penchant for losing or breaking things such as cameras or laptops, after which he would run to his family or friends for help.
But his family indulged Co and allowed him to pursue what he wanted, since he was the eldest and the only male among his siblings, according to his brother-in-law Bobby Austria.
“You will all agree that genius thrives best in a nurturing environment. That environment was his family,” Austria said.
But he also shared the family's grief and frustration at the apparent lack of action over the death of Co and his companions. He said what was being reported were all “press releases.”
The family wants nothing less than justice, he said.
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