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The Philippine Narra Tree
(Pterocarpus indicus, Willd)

When we talk of the Philippine Narra tree (Pterocarpus indicus Willd), we speak of ornamental avenue tree or the excellent highly prized reddish, rose-scented timber regarded for its beauty and termite resistant quality for furniture and building purposes.

But an eventful mistake in 1991 led to the discovery of Narra’s immense healing power by Virgilio V. Ecarma, a reserve Lieutenant Colonel of the Philippine Air Force and former Philippine Airlines Boeing 747-400 Captain. Exasperated with the temporary relief gained from the prescribed medicines by physicians to his rheumatoid arthritis, he searched for alternative cure when he stumbled into the medicinal properties of the Philippine Narra tree by pure accident. He boiled the cut Narra branches and bark scrapings of what he mistakenly thought was the much published Mahogany tree for his arthritis. He drank a glassful of the decoction from Narra and in a few hours he felt the decrease in pain. The next day the pain was almost gone and the day after, it was totally gone. He gave the same decoction to his brother-in-law who was suffering from diabetes with a persistent eczema on his foot. To their surprise – his brother-in-law's blood sugar became normal and unrelenting itch was gone. This experience led him to finance the scientific validation of the Narra tree as a safe medicinal plant.

Philippine Narra has undergone the scientific validation processes of medicinal plants for primary health care. The study made by the Industrial Technology Development Institute of the Department of Science and Technology on the Philippine Narra Tree (Pterocarpus indicus Willd) revealed Acute Lethal Dosage 50 percent (LD50) to be safe at 283 g/kg which is much higher than some known medicinal plants like Ampalaya (Momordica Charantia) 38.72 g/kg, Sambong (Blumea balsmifera L.) 62.65 g/kg, Bayabas (Psidium guajava L.) 85.11 g/kg, and Lagundi (Vitex negundo) 130 g/kg.

The Mutagenicity Test conducted by the Bio-Organic Laboratory, Institute of Chemistry, University of the Philippines, headed by Dr. Clara Lim - Syliangco, Ph.D., showed the absence of mutagenic components that can alter DNA structure that may cause cancer. This study proved that the Philippine Narra Tree is non-mutagenic.

Finally, the Subchronic Toxicity Test done by The Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, University of the Philippines further stress the non-existence of adverse reaction to the vital organs and other bodily processes of experimental animals after it was given Narra for long period of time.

The clinical studies conducted by Dr. Chuchi Quijano at Mactan, Cebu, Philippines showed that Philippine Narra has the ability lower the blood sugar of diabetes mellitus patients, to alleviate the inflammation of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers. Patient's urinary stones were washed away with their urine.