Plant ten trees if you want to graduate, Philippines passes new law

Yeah, that math is definitely wonky. I don't think the Philippines even has the physical space for 525 billion trees, and I think there was a decimal place missing.

175 million x 25 (years) is 4.375 billion, so 5.25 billion seems close. The article also mentions 10% of the trees being 525 million, so that fits 5.25 billion too.

Think of a tree as a plant that comes from a seed. Plant 30 acorns, the forestry employees will weed out the other 29 over a few years. The ratio is probably higher if you start early, lower if you start with the type of 2 year old trees you can buy in a shop.

Outside of forestry, nature ensures that the majority of trees dont make it.

Another factor is that for fast growing trees used in pulp, they get felled in massive amounts every year. Planted trees are not left alone.