In her time, then first lady Imelda Marcos called coconut the “tree of life” — providing food, water (the cleanest, safest in nature), shelter and construction material.

Now, one generation later and quoting her son, PBBM on his State of the Nation address: “Millions of Filipinos rely on coconut trees as their main livelihood. . . We will continue until we plant 100 million coconut trees nationwide.”

He has three years to do it. It may seem like a daunting task, but coconut trees are a hardy breed and they’re easy to plant and they grow fast. What has to be done is to start now, right away.

Years ago, Danding Cojuangco wanted to propagate the “golden coconut” species, of which he was very proud, but it was not to be.

A hundred million trees may seem as unlikely or as impossible as planting a forest in a concrete jungle, but the urban planner Jun Palafox has an inspiring tale to tell. When he was asked to change the climate and make a modern city out of a desert kingdom, he asked the king to start the project by first allocating one million trees. Which the king did, immediately. Today the kingdom is no longer described as a desert kingdom; it’s a first-class, ultramodern city that is home to first-class international investors. (The last time I was there, it was a pleasure to see so many Filipinas working in luxury retail stores and how many others were in uniform as security guards.)

Another tree treasure of ours is the caballero, aka fire or flame tree, whose red-orange blossoms blooming in the heat at the height of summer appear to be a challenge to the sun to “bring it on!”

Once upon a time the dream was to plant a row of those fire trees around the outer perimeter of Quezon Memorial Circle. Imagine, a circle of beautiful trees acting as a health cover also, to tone down the carbon exhaust from all kinds of four-wheel vehicles moving around the 4km Circle.

Alas, “progress” has caught up with the Circle; it has lost many trees to make way for parking!