Insect infestation: Think impunity

Picture a burst of limbs from a death-like state, the sudden blooms and sprouts on bare twigs, and as if wakened on multi-hues of happiness, the tulip fields—it’s spring. In our bones long chilled and often freezing, we, too, feel a sprint, especially of the spirit. But exhilaration has a dangerous underside, and if unchecked could prove disastrous; spring’s dizzying brilliance, for one, could leave us opiated by the flowers, hence, hidden forces encrusted within Nature’s balancing power could benumb us.

These could be as microscopic as spider mite eggs—if only these, like those of fowls, were easy to pick and smash. But without shells, these fool the eye as dust except for an orangey-hue that later turns the leaves they feed on from brick to bronze in a slow process of dying.

Yes, it drove me into helplessness last spring, finding the holly, a beautiful birthday gift of the two-toned species, that I had dreamed would blossom and bear red berries for Christmas, attacked by spider mites.

Worst, the scale insect joined in with its dark juice that made the bush appear as if mantled in sorrow. Unnoticeable at first, they suddenly brocaded the holly with translucent oval-shaped scales that I scraped and squashed with bare fingers but I would barely turn my back and find an even larger swarm on the branches, the twigs and more on the underside of leaves.

The sweetish sticky substance turned out to be their waste that they excrete instantly as they sap life off the holly, though I didn’t know at first; instead, I blamed the upper floor neighbor who could have been sweeping dust off her terrace, and already drafted a complaint to the Strata Council. I had thought, I could also just bathe the plant but the soot proved resistant to water.

And so, I wrapped the blackened leaves in thick paper towel and like a distraught mother with a dying child brought it to Art Knapp garden shop by the corner.

From the plant specialist, I learned a darkly strange diagnosis about a multiple infestation of scale insects and spider mites. He walked me through a colorful shelf of insect and pest “poison” sprays and mixtures, wrote down a “prescription,” and took the jugs off the shelves; I carried these home feeling equipped with an arsenal for battle.

Indeed, confounded by an act of impunity, which I had felt about the infestation, I had no choice, being human, but to also attack with impunity to win. Recalling how I had watched almost weepy, the felling of the wasp-infested oak two springs ago, I vowed not to let the holly just die without ever giving it a chance to survive. Several sprays and washings later, the scales showed no signs one morning; the holly had bloomed thickly again.

But two weeks ago, yet another symptom had crept in with spring—a premature falling of yellowed freckled leaves that formed a skirt around the pot as the plant specialist had warned.

Impunity, indeed, lurks in our lives—even if unintended, as in Nature that could blind us—but more so, I believe in our hearts; consider the battles waged on a front where the lines blur, namely, people surviving with amazing impunity versus government leaders sapping life out of them with roaring impunity.

In truth, a recent report by Kicker Daily News on a study where the Philippines topped 59 countries in the “First World Impunity Index” clinched my idea for this column. Conducted by the Impunity and Justice Research Center of the Universidad de las Americas Pueblas in Mexico, the study looked into public administration, delay of justice and violation of human rights.

My parallel view with my war against plant infestation may seem arbitrary but suddenly, I finally get the nuance of the word, “impunity.”