ANNE-MARIE BAKKER: PLANTING TREES, ONE PAGE AT A TIME

Anne-Marie Bakker is half-Dutch, half-Filipino, and 100-percent dendrophile (tree lover). She glows with her enviable tan from getting a lot of sun while planting trees or chasing the waves on the beach.

- CHING M. ALANO

"I must have been 5 years old or something when Mom (Ophelia 'Ophie' Mananquil Bakker, once named Woman of the Earth) started to put us in the soil," Anne-Marie recalls with a chuckle. "My two brothers, Pieter and Henry-Jacques, and I were eating soil as far back then. Seriously, Mom made us plant when we were like toddlers. My first five years, we lived in Indonesia because my dad (Jacob 'Jack' Bakker) had his tobacco job there, where we had like a farm in the house with a lot of animals. There was even a peacock."

She adds cheerfully, "Nature was our playground in Indonesia and my brothers and I really enjoyed being in nature."

A HOME FULL OF LOVE AND TREES

The Bakker children grew up in a family that planted, prayed and played together. Theirs was a happy home full of love and trees. "Our home was (and still is) punong-puno ng puno," Anne-Marie stresses with a smile as bright as sunlight.

Indeed, Ophie Bakker planted in her children a passion for trees. "It was inherent in us and to be honest, all children would have it if they were exposed to it," Anne-Marie asserts. "You can't experience the forest and its benefits through Instagram. You need to touch the frequency of the earth, you need to touch a tree, literally hug a tree, because it has a vibration, there's a life force. It's earthy walking on sand at sea or walking in the forest and touching the soil."

Ophie comes from a farming family in Tarlac. Anne-Marie recalls that her mom was always planting and everywhere she went, she got seeds and was always giving away seedlings and plants, specifically wood trees and fruit-bearing trees. "To us children, it was normal to love trees," Anne-Marie confesses. "For those who don't, that was not normal. We learned a lot from planting trees, it kept us grounded."

She'll never forget the time her mom brought mango seeds to Holland from the Philippines or olive tree seedlings from Italy to the Philippines.