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The political season is one devoted to the most
outrageous reinvention of both rhetoric and character. Crooks parade
themselves as saints. Jerks are the torchbearers of civility. Morons
quote St. Thomas Aquinas. Brutal warlords are Mother Theresa.
Today, the verbal overdrive that
has carpet-bombed the landscape with megatons of Websterian
excessiveness, will intensify, peaking into an eardrum-breaking
decibel. It will be of one theme—tribute to Mother Earth. Because
it is the celebration of Earth Day and politicians will not miss
this chance to scorch the ground with their faux environmental
activism. After the Goracle won real applause for his documentary on
global warming, politicians are, more than ever, convinced that
espousing environmental nonsense is vogue.
Twenty years ago, an
environmental crusade was the surest formula to the path of
political oblivion. Then-Sen. Heherson Alvarez, steered cleared of
the usual legislative issues and decided to man the ramparts of
environmental protection. But where is Sonny Alvarez now and all
that frontier effort? Sonny is in political limbo while the ones who
crucified him are still around.
Timing is everything as Alvarez
has learned.
If indeed the timing is now
perfect for the bannering of the environmental agenda, such should
be done with real seriousness and urgency. The opening, the window
of opportunity to physically heal much-abused Planet Earth is small
and fast-closing. The cliché invoked by politicians is right this
time—an ecological time bomb is ticking away to doomsday. Planet
Earth is in deep trouble, real trouble. The Philippines has a full
showcase of the scourge, the scars and the warts.
The country’s old-growth forest
cover is below 1 million hectares, a sad thing for a country which
used to supply the hardwood for the furniture of the world’s
royalty and the mahogany for the premier sports centers in Japan and
North America. There are less than a dozen provinces with forest
covers of 60 percent and above. More than 60 provinces can be
considered barren.
The critical watershed areas have
not been spared by greed (legal and illegal loggers), poverty
(slash-and-burn farmers) and by Mother Nature and its woeful wrath.
National parks are fair game and there are reports of logging right
inside the sprawling military camp in Laur, Nueva Ecija.
Clear-cutting forest areas, while
it does not kill or maim, is one of the top three crimes that
entities and individuals can commit against humanity. Clear-cutting
forests destroys biodiversity. Wondrous plants and animal species
which can be the source of drugs, medicine, life-extending
supplements are annihilated. Killing biodiversity is an assault of
human life itself, that is how serious the crime is.
Ravaging watershed areas wastes
the sources of potable water. Picture this: once the watershed areas
that supply water to the La Mesa Dam during summer are wasted, there
will be no water for Metro Manila. Chaos and panic in the entire
megalopolis will follow.
The other natural resources of
the country are in the same hellish condition. The land resource,
its seas and oceans and its rivers, are in a dire state.
Erosion translates into a
two-inch evaporation of topsoil a year. What is eroded goes down to
the bottom of the bodies of water, as unwanted sediment. The
unabated use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides in agricultural
lands renders the soil toxic.
In areas near mining concessions,
mine tailings cascade from the ponds into the farmlands below,
transforming thriving farms into poison ponds.
One still doubtful on the
genocidal streak of water pollution, take the case of the Pasig
River. This is a dead river with zero B-O-D, or biological oxygen
demand.
Even the fish species adept at
surviving under the worst condition—the gourami—cannot survive
the stink and the muck of the Pasig River.
Or take a look at Manila Bay near
the piers. Oil slick and flotsam, plastic strewn everywhere. The
postcard beauty of the bay is now a treasured snapshot, not the real
thing anymore.
Every major natural resource
component of the country either stinks or is badly screwed up.
So it is time to get serious,
deadly serious.
After the Earth Day celebration
is over and the attention of politicians is elsewhere, the real
caretakers of the environment can pick up from their verbal litter
and sift the good ideas from the bad ones.
Pursue the line of inconvenient
truth. Discard the convenient falsehood.
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