MANILA, Philippines – A group has launched a campaign urging Filipinos to boycott all SM malls on Sunday, January 25, to protest the cutting of 60 pine trees in Baguio to make way for the mall company’s Sky Park project.

Dubbed “Wala Ako Sa SM Sa Linggo (I Won’t Be In SM This Sunday),” the campaign’s Facebook event has already garnered around 7,000 “participants.”

The campaign was initiated by Boycott SM Baguio, a group of Baguio residents who have been fighting SM’s tree-cutting activities in the North Luzon city since 2012. Some members say they have not set foot in SM Baguio since then.

A question asked by one of the organizers revealed the top 3 reasons why participants agreed to boycott SM on Sunday:

1. One way to stop a monster is to stop feeding it.
2. To mourn the degradation of the city I knew.
3. They have no regard for the welfare of the communities where they operate.

Karlo Altomonte, the host of the campaign’s Facebook page, knows the planned boycott can only do so much.

“I don’t believe this will have the effect normally expected of boycotts – SM is the biggest commercial chain in the country, owned by the richest family in the country. But we do believe that this will somehow put a dent on their bottomline, no matter how small, and even if only for a day,” he told Rappler.

But he says the issue is bigger even than SM. What’s at stake is the kind of urban development transforming Baguio, the so-called “summer capital.”

“The city was originally built as a haven for health and recreation. This was a sanitarium…But the city’s current administrators are doing all they can to make Baguio what it is not: an urban jungle,” said Altomonte.

Allowing SM to get away with the tree-cutting would “open the flood gates to similar development efforts that would gravely impact the environment,” he added.

Good for Baguio?

But SM Supermalls said the Sky Park will be good for Baguio.

In response to issues of flooding, SM said the Sky Park will feature an underground rainwater catchment tank. It will also have a parking area that can “help decongest traffic along Upper Session Road,” it said in a statement.

While the pine trees helped lessen air pollution by generating oxygen, SM says the Sky Park will have “green walls consisting of live plants that will help improve air quality.”

SM weathered legal battles for two years to secure permits to cut the pine trees.

In 2012, Baguio residents filed two environmental complaints and a contempt charge against SM Baguio. They were able to secure a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) against the mall from the Baguio Regional Trial Court (RTC) in April 2012 but the same court dismissed all the petitions in December 2012.

In December 2014, the Court of Appeals affirmed the RTC’s dismissal of the cases and lifting of the TEPO, thus removing all legal impediments to the tree-cutting.

Altomonte says the fight is not over. The group plans to file a Motion for Reconsideration with the Court of Appeals.

“If that is denied again, we’ll bring it up to the Supreme Court,” he said. – Rappler.com