De Leon: Heal the world

HEAL the world; make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race..."

This Michael Jackson song once hit the airwaves but the call to heal the world has apparently not hit us even until now.

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After the Haiti catastrophic incident last month, another shattering destruction occurred as Chile experienced an 8.8 magnitude which caused chaos and alarm to some neighboring countries as well as Pacific Ocean-wide.

According to Michelle Bachelet, Chilean President, she expected that the numbers of death toll will rise from 708 causing her to call the event as an "unthinkable disaster".

Right after the disastrous and powerful earthquake in Chile, tsunami alarm was disseminated throughout the world focusing across Pacific. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued an alert to countries such as Latin America, Japan, Russia, Indonesia, French Polynesia and the Philippines. Due to this, alert was issued to the eastern coast of the Philippines.

With all these undesirable occurrences in the world, can we blame climate change? Or us?

Let us look at all the angles one by one. First, people tend to take things for granted. This attitude is often seen in our dismissive treatment to Mother Nature. We tend not to realize the importance of our environment and its big contribution for our survival.

Some people abuse nature for their own interest, only for their own benefit.

Mining and logging, whether legal or not, destroy Mother Earth. We should value and treasure every single tree but all these mining and logging permits simply depict one thing - the legalization of destroying Mother Earth.

According to Vinay Rana, "Trees help in controlling temperature of the environment. The place where there are trees are much cooler and hygienic for living."

Since deforestations are somewhat legal these days and even before, hazards have been seen and people suffered. Rana said that some of the problems brought by deforestations are environmental imbalance and global warming.

The problems brought about by deforestations are somehow connected to the earthquake and tsunami alert that occurred this year which killed thousands.

Our government is hoping for the safety and security of our nation. Yet, there are some things which our officials tend to disregard. They have focused so much in eradicating corruption and poverty and they missed one very important task – to take care of Mother Nature more.

May the next leaders after this year’s election focus not on strengthening their credibility as individuals but to focus more on how to improve our nation and how to add remedy to the first signs of destruction in the world.

We are all hoping for a better place to live. Yet the better place we are dreaming for is breaking slowly. But, it is not too late yet. We still have time to heal the world. We still have time to heal the entire human race.

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Sunday Essays are articles written by 3rd Year Masscom students of the Ateneo de Davao University for their advanced journalism class.