500 Year Old Bittaog Tree
One tourist attraction in Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte is a bittaog tree that has withstood the greed and wretchedness of man through the years. Now 500 years old, it amazes one to see that it has been spared from the wanton cutting down of large trees in Mindanao.
Its huge size alone is already an attraction to many visitors, as not so many people have still to see trees of a similar size, or just about it, in other places. Amazingly, the people in the locality have preserved the tree-the one and only of its kind in Cabadbaran. A marker has been constructed near the tree to indicate its importance to the people of Cabadbaran.
It is not known how valuable the tree has been to people in Cabadbaran, but older people in the Ilocos extracted oil from its fruits during the second world war. They used its oil as fuel for their lampara. Unlike kerosene whose smoke is not friendly to people, the bittaog oil is a lot better. Unfortunately, the bittaog trees in the Ilocos are almost gone now. None of them has reached the size of the tree in Cabadbaran.
