Eighteen million hectares of Philippine uplands originally contained thousands of mountain streams that drained to 240 major rivers which flowed along 12 million hectares of plains towards the sea. These days the uplands that rise at average 1,500 meters are so denuded of trees that most of their streams dry up during the country's six summer months. Even in regions with nearly-balanced rain and dry days year-round, the absence of trees indicates near-total absence of mountain streams. When the pouring rains come over the next six months, hardly any forest or greenery absorbs and stores upland waters, resulting to heavy topsoil erosion, flash floods of stream waters due to absence of water-storing plant roots, silting and shallowing of lowland rivers, rising frequency of landslides that at times bury entire villages, sudden collapse of upland road sections, and widespread floods in plains, towns and cities. The combined scourges create terrible tragedies and billions of pe