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THERE was this bit of news that
came out in the papers recently about the “closing in dangers of
global warming.” It said that the Filipinos are showing rising
awareness of the perils their environment is increasingly facing
everyday. And yet, the government has not really come out with any
creditable and effective program directed at the countryside, to the
very people who are in constant contact with the “environment”
they should protect.
While talks of
protecting the environment and conserving the nation’s natural
resources have been going on for years, no conscious government
efforts have been perceptible to inform the countryside folks what
the problem is all about, and why they should exert efforts to obey
the laws and cooperate with government agencies that are
implementing environmental protection programs. But why are our
rural folks not heeding the call?
The answer
appears quite simple and commonsensical. Most of the time,
government and non-goverrnment environment-protection programs come
down to the rural folks in the form of laws and regulations that
tell them what to do and what not to do in their rural homes, in the
areas where they eke out a living, and survive on what they get from
their environment. But most often, they’re never told why they
should or should not do it.
Ask a farmer
why he should not burn in the middle of his cornfield the cornstalks
left there after the harvest, and he would look at you quizzically,
wondering why not. He has been doing it all his life, and why only
now should he leave the cornstalks in the field to plow over and
rot. Nobody bothers to tell him about “whys” behind the
prohibition of kaingin farming, or behind the ban of destroying
mangrove swamps and sea corals.
“If I cannot
cut those trees in the farm to sell for firewood,” asked my late
grandfather’s farm tenant Pablo, in Barangay Siamong of my
hometown, “where will I get cash to buy viand for my kids?”
Siamong was the setting of most of my short stories that came out in
my collection called the The Bald Mountains. Where, indeed, should
marginal farm families get their living in between harvests when all
that they know is live off the land?
I think, if we
are serious about protecting the environment, and saving Mother
Earth for its future population, those among the living now should
exert extra effort to make rural folks learn how to nurture the
living greens in their homes to thrive and to grow as their allies
in the struggle for survival in their mountain homes. But note,
it’s difficult to do something that would curtail one’s effort
to acquire the day’s meal for the family.
Which is the
reason why I believe the current mid-term election campaign should
adopt the problem of environment protection and conservation as all
the candidates’ common concern, and include this in their campaign
issues. This is something that holds common ties with everyone, and
should not be just one candidate’s or one party’s issue of
concern, but rather of all. Why can’t all candidates advocate the
same concern for environment?
Politics, I
think, should not be used as a means to achieve power and influence
for the candidates during election campaigns. It should also be
utilized as a means to achieve a common good for the national
society. It’s a pity if all the candidates going on an odyssey all
over the country, meeting people and exchanging notes on prevailing
local problems, could not also make a pitch about the problems of
our environment.
What could
probably stymie them is the part about people’s livelihood, when
the people confront them with their basic reality about making a
living and surviving. What could a candidate say when asked for a
better alternative than making charcoal as a living using mangrove
trees or all sorts of trees they could cut in the mountains that now
gives them enough cash to buy their meals for two or three days?
Indeed,
questions such as these beg for an answer. The candidates’
ingenuity and wisdom, as well as their basic common sense, would be
tested here. But they have to be answered. The current endangered
ecosystem balance has to be squarely faced.
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