Sen Loren Legarda
The Philippine Senate
Manila
December 31, 2010

Dear Senator Legarda,

Greetings from far-away Mindanao! I cannot let the year pass without sending you my best regards and gratitude for the very nice things you have done for the country. These were noted some years ago, when my in-law brought me to the Luneta Park to show me that there are still some things that we can appreciate. This was the beautiful shady trees that gave the people a place to rest comfortable amidst the hassles of city life. The other one was the once-beautiful and eye-catching poem, Trees, which I saw in Cagayan de Oro City near Lumbia Airport. I meant to acknowledge these as early as I’ve seen them but I would confess that the very busyness of life had also crowded my intentions and now the trees had grown and the poem as well had faded. I’m sorry.

You must be a lover of nature as well and as late as it is, I now would like to thank you for these two things that help lighten the burdens of life once we realize and thank our God Who is the Creator of these things.

The poem came back to mind and I was determined to keep it there but as much as I tried I cannot recall a stanza near the end of the poem. I’ve tried to request friends who would pass by the place to write it down for me. I was so frustrated when they tell me it was there and I thought they were just excuses so when we took a friend to the airport I determined that I would find it myself.

Now I knew why my friends missed it. The poem was indeed still there in whole but after finding the stanza I was missing, we decided to leave. At the end, we also found that you were the one responsible for it being there so another question was answered by our discovery that it is to you that I should write to. The poem was indeed still there but so faded that unless one is as determined in finding it, like I was, it was hard to find amidst the grown weeds that crammed around it. Asking for information from the little store where one of the stanzas was, was no great help because he also doesn’t care. I am so thankful that that our driver-friend was so patient seeing how determined I was. We turned back and slowly retraced our steps. With traffic whizzing past us, I found what I came for and now I should not let this opportunity pass thanking and appreciating you for it. I know that should our young be taught to appreciate what God had given us to take care of, we will learn to be more like the people God created us, to take care of His creation! Thank you, dear Senator Legarda! May your example be multiplied several times more! More power!

Very sincerely,

(signed)
MILA DE LA CRUZ