Philippine Flora

The Philipppines is blessed with rich, fertile soil.

I mention this because just this morning I made a pesto sauce out of MALUNGGAY! Yes, malunggay!!! Moringga Oleifera is it's scientific name. It's endemic in the Philippines and is quite prolific in our country, no thanks to our soil.

What is it? you might ask. It's a plant with tiny green oval leaves normally found all over the country. There's a surge of interest on the plant quite recently. Someone from the west discovered its medicinal properties. All of a sudden it's hot commodity. When for many years, all we Filipinos ever did with it was make it into suwam (a light soup with corn kernels and malunggay leaves) or add it to monggo beans.

During the famine in Ethiopia, the Africans were starving but the goats were fat and healthy. Guess what? the goats were eating the leaves of a malunggay plant. That saved them.

Gaita Fores, erstwhile chef and restaurateur, mentioned in one of the Mabuhay Guide classes on Philippine cuisine that in Thailand (as a custom) people look away when they bury their dead. That's because their soil starts getting rocky at a depth of four feet. Here, you can dig all you want and find that the soil remains brown and loamy.

Throw a seed around anywhere in the Philippines and it will grow. We tend to overlook that fact. We also tend to take our flora for granted. Now look who has the WALING-WALING for their national flower...