METRO Manila is deemed to be one of the densest cities in the world. A city with millions of people sprawled amid concrete jungles, polluted esteros and gray trodden roads. Engulfed by plumes of smoke and pollution from kilometers-long lines of cars, buses and jeepneys every single day of their lives. Ironic that a capital city in a tropical island has no trees and spaces to breathe for the lives of millions of people to flourish and thrive. A city so gray — made so gray — where the people are the ones left to give it life and color. And even with the little remaining parks left, most of which are golf courses and cemeteries, where the dead and not the living belong, threats force in to cut and destroy the last roots and trunks of century-old trees in the metro. The Arroceros Forest Park, known as The Last Lung of Manila, was branches away from getting eradicated from the map of the city when people in control of the park stopped the water supply and threatened to construct buildings within the area by cutting down hundreds of old-grown trees — until environmental groups intervened to defend this last beating lung in the heart of the city. Developers and leaders of construction firms and industries may have forgotten the priceless and incommutable value of having green spaces and trees within the cities they live in, from the shade they provide to the spaces of relaxation they give for us to breathe in this incessantly busy world. Green spaces and parks not only decrease health costs, which is already a great burden for many Filipinos due to the lack of efficient healthcare systems, parks also play a role in supporting the productivity of employees and workers trapped and consumed by the suffocating corners of their workspace.