As a country, we are just 109 years old. We were supposed to have been the first republic in Asia on 12 June 1898. But the freedom our first revolutionary heroes fought for and won from the Spaniards, who controlled our minds and souls for more than 300 years, was short-lived. The Americans came to wrest the freedom we just won.
One tragedy in our history is that we have been turned over from one colonial master to another. The Spaniards and the Americans finally left, but we have yet to free ourselves from the enslaving impacts of colonization.
Now we are still struggling to free ourselves from the impact of being cloistered in a convent for almost four centuries and for being bombarded with Hollywood for almost a century, not to mention decades of IMF and the World Bank.
But within and among us, we have yet to free ourselves from other forms of slavery and subjugation. We have to liberate ourselves from ghosts of the past, which were never exorcised and which continue to resurrect and haunt us.
Very much around us is the ghost of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose martial law regime brought a climate of fear. Such climate still remains and no other than Supreme Court Justice Renato Puno had expressed concern and alarm over the still many unsolved political killings and other human indignities still happening in a supposed democracy.
Puno cited other ghosts – the ghosts of Garci and the ghosts of poverty. Even as Garci continues to haunt us, another Garci incarnate surnamed Bedol has come out to make us puke.
Puno was right about poverty. While top officials thump their breasts and congratulate themselves for what they claim is a booming economy, the poor continue not to feel the impact of so-called economic growth. A tank of liquefied petroleum gas remains expensive at P550. No wonder my neighbors, in search of firewood, continue to cut the branches of the trees in our neighborhood, threatening the remaining trees in our village.
There are other various forms of slavery from which we should free ourselves. We still have to outgrow and transcend our bigotry, prejudices and intolerance.
As we have said in past columns, the world is better seen from the prism of a rainbow. But many of us still view the world in black and white.
And there’s our slavery from our own materialist and consumerist ways. We think the planet is something we can squeeze like a lemon for our greed. Now the planet is getting warmer and our climate is changing, bringing disasters of catastrophic proportions.
With the way things are, we have yet to win our real freedom, individually and collectively.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Environmental Blues
We pay lip service to the environment each time we celebrate World Environment Day on June 5 or World Earth Day on April 23 in the same way that we do to health during World No-Smoking Day. And we get to see ceremonial tree-planting here and there by officials under the glare of news cameras.
In fairness, the seedlings, which officials plant -- even if done for the cameras -- may yet grow to become tall, proud trees on which birds could nest. This is if the seedlings are planted in June, the start of the rainy season. Otherwise, any ceremonial tree planting done during the dry months is just for photo opportunities.
Yes, we need to plant more trees rather than build more and more gasoline stations or concrete pine trees and arches. We need to plant all those seedlings before summer sets in again.
And we need to protect the mountainsides where we planted our seedlings. One irony in this country is that we plant seedlings on our mountainsides during the rainy season but we burn them down during summer. Worse, these tree-planting efforts may have been funded by multi-million-dollar loans from the World Bank.
Given the reported hectares upon hectares of mountainsides reforested through World Bank funding in the 1980s and 1990s, the country must be turning lush green again. But we have yet to see a forest that resurrected through these World Bank loans. In this country, there are ghost forests as there are ghost employees and ghost voters.
But if forests have become ghosts, this is not so with our garbage and the thick smog that we have to wrestle with each day. Our garbage is mounting as our air is becoming thicker and thicker with pollutants. Just expose yourself at the busy streets of Baguio’s heart and belly and your head aches after getting exposed to all those fumes from passenger jeeps and taxis.
We need not be surprised if our city’s garbage is mounting. Much of the central business district’s solid wastes come from the Styrofoam and plastic containers used by fast-food chains. That’s why I still bow my head to all the old-style restaurants, which use porcelain plates and other dishes that need the services of a dishwasher.
Much of the threats and damage to our environment and to Mother Earth as a whole actually comes from a highly consumerist and throw-away lifestyle. The biggest polluter in the world, for instance, is the US because it is the biggest consumer of fossil fuels.
Baguio, especially its central business district, has poor air quality, according to a World Bank study. This is not surprising. Given its small area, Baguio has one of the most numbers of taxis and passenger jeeps in the country.
So how do we reduce our fuel consumption? On a collective and individual level, the less fuel we consume, the better for our community and our planet. From using plastics and Styrofoam to giving out franchises to taxi and passenger jeep applicants in such a small city as Baguio, we can seek the wisdom of the sages who admonish us that “less is more.”
Less is more also means simple living and high thinking and being able to choose the more essential to the gross and vain.
In fairness, the seedlings, which officials plant -- even if done for the cameras -- may yet grow to become tall, proud trees on which birds could nest. This is if the seedlings are planted in June, the start of the rainy season. Otherwise, any ceremonial tree planting done during the dry months is just for photo opportunities.
Yes, we need to plant more trees rather than build more and more gasoline stations or concrete pine trees and arches. We need to plant all those seedlings before summer sets in again.
And we need to protect the mountainsides where we planted our seedlings. One irony in this country is that we plant seedlings on our mountainsides during the rainy season but we burn them down during summer. Worse, these tree-planting efforts may have been funded by multi-million-dollar loans from the World Bank.
Given the reported hectares upon hectares of mountainsides reforested through World Bank funding in the 1980s and 1990s, the country must be turning lush green again. But we have yet to see a forest that resurrected through these World Bank loans. In this country, there are ghost forests as there are ghost employees and ghost voters.
But if forests have become ghosts, this is not so with our garbage and the thick smog that we have to wrestle with each day. Our garbage is mounting as our air is becoming thicker and thicker with pollutants. Just expose yourself at the busy streets of Baguio’s heart and belly and your head aches after getting exposed to all those fumes from passenger jeeps and taxis.
We need not be surprised if our city’s garbage is mounting. Much of the central business district’s solid wastes come from the Styrofoam and plastic containers used by fast-food chains. That’s why I still bow my head to all the old-style restaurants, which use porcelain plates and other dishes that need the services of a dishwasher.
Much of the threats and damage to our environment and to Mother Earth as a whole actually comes from a highly consumerist and throw-away lifestyle. The biggest polluter in the world, for instance, is the US because it is the biggest consumer of fossil fuels.
Baguio, especially its central business district, has poor air quality, according to a World Bank study. This is not surprising. Given its small area, Baguio has one of the most numbers of taxis and passenger jeeps in the country.
So how do we reduce our fuel consumption? On a collective and individual level, the less fuel we consume, the better for our community and our planet. From using plastics and Styrofoam to giving out franchises to taxi and passenger jeep applicants in such a small city as Baguio, we can seek the wisdom of the sages who admonish us that “less is more.”
Less is more also means simple living and high thinking and being able to choose the more essential to the gross and vain.
Health Hazard
On national television we saw the mess and violence that accompanied the special elections in some parts of Mindanao. Supporters pulled each other’s hair as they raged in shouting matches while guns were tucked in the waists of some men. These guns didn’t include the long firearms of soldiers who seemed helpless in keeping the peace and order during the special elections there.
This lack of order and discipline, the alleged vote-shaving and vote-padding, and the reported manipulated vote for sale from some COMELEC officials there make us sick. The news reports about all these make us puke. All these raise our blood pressure, giving more reasons for other Filipinos to leave this cursed country for good.
Small wonder election commissioner Rene Sarmiento, who was assigned to supervise the special elections in Maguindanao, resigned for “health reasons.” Among the few credible persons within the Comelec, Sarmiento was sent to Maguindanao to help give credence to the special elections. But apparently he could not stomach what he personally saw and got sick in the process.
Also sick and tired of all these mess and chaos in those parts in southern Philippines, one commentator suggested that these communities be segregated from the country and be called “Command Votes Territory.” Similarly, some quarters here in the Cordillera proposed that Abra, where some towns become a Wild Wild West during elections, be deleted from the Cordillera Administrative Region.
Of course, such suggestion doesn’t help. But it shows a growing frustration over why the Comelec and other concerned authorities failed to institute a credible way of electing our officials.
With all the mess and violence accompanying elections in other parts, I began to appreciate and value the discipline and good manners and right conduct of voters in my hometown of Kibungan in Benguet. There, we would queue up and we would even let the elderly vote first. Yes, in Kibungan, we still respect our elders. This is most common in Benguet and other parts of the Cordillera.
The mess in Mindanao all the more suggests that we need to modernize our stone-age electoral system.
But even if we computerize our electoral system, we are not sure if the violence and anomalies that accompany our elections will automatically disappear. Maybe the next irregularities will be more high-tech. Maybe they won’t burn ballot boxes, but CPUs. And watch out for computer hackers.
One big step forward is to clean up the Comelec. Remove the likes of Ben Abalos and his ilk, who have made the Comelec very partisan. Putting in credible persons like Sarmiento won’t help. Like the Supreme Court, the Comelec should be beyond question.
Even if we put fresh tomatoes in a basket of rotten ones, the fresh, good ones will also rot. We put some good, credible men like Sarmiento in a ‘Hello Garci’-infested Comelec, but they, like Yoyoy Villame, would end up wailing, “O Mother, Mother I’m sick, O call the doctor very quick. Doctor, doctor shall I die? O tell my mama do not cry.”
As Sarmiento found out, working with Abalos’ Comelec is hazardous to a credible person’s health.
This lack of order and discipline, the alleged vote-shaving and vote-padding, and the reported manipulated vote for sale from some COMELEC officials there make us sick. The news reports about all these make us puke. All these raise our blood pressure, giving more reasons for other Filipinos to leave this cursed country for good.
Small wonder election commissioner Rene Sarmiento, who was assigned to supervise the special elections in Maguindanao, resigned for “health reasons.” Among the few credible persons within the Comelec, Sarmiento was sent to Maguindanao to help give credence to the special elections. But apparently he could not stomach what he personally saw and got sick in the process.
Also sick and tired of all these mess and chaos in those parts in southern Philippines, one commentator suggested that these communities be segregated from the country and be called “Command Votes Territory.” Similarly, some quarters here in the Cordillera proposed that Abra, where some towns become a Wild Wild West during elections, be deleted from the Cordillera Administrative Region.
Of course, such suggestion doesn’t help. But it shows a growing frustration over why the Comelec and other concerned authorities failed to institute a credible way of electing our officials.
With all the mess and violence accompanying elections in other parts, I began to appreciate and value the discipline and good manners and right conduct of voters in my hometown of Kibungan in Benguet. There, we would queue up and we would even let the elderly vote first. Yes, in Kibungan, we still respect our elders. This is most common in Benguet and other parts of the Cordillera.
The mess in Mindanao all the more suggests that we need to modernize our stone-age electoral system.
But even if we computerize our electoral system, we are not sure if the violence and anomalies that accompany our elections will automatically disappear. Maybe the next irregularities will be more high-tech. Maybe they won’t burn ballot boxes, but CPUs. And watch out for computer hackers.
One big step forward is to clean up the Comelec. Remove the likes of Ben Abalos and his ilk, who have made the Comelec very partisan. Putting in credible persons like Sarmiento won’t help. Like the Supreme Court, the Comelec should be beyond question.
Even if we put fresh tomatoes in a basket of rotten ones, the fresh, good ones will also rot. We put some good, credible men like Sarmiento in a ‘Hello Garci’-infested Comelec, but they, like Yoyoy Villame, would end up wailing, “O Mother, Mother I’m sick, O call the doctor very quick. Doctor, doctor shall I die? O tell my mama do not cry.”
As Sarmiento found out, working with Abalos’ Comelec is hazardous to a credible person’s health.
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