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Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Yap: Coliform content
By Januar E. Yap
Meanwhile
(continued)
A pleasant good morning to all of you,” he said with a smirk. “It’s great to have you this morning.” At this point, everyone seemed all set for the crucial announcement of the gentleman from the environment department.
The culprit we are talking about is the organism called Escherichia coli,” he said, and then suddenly, he became part of a large, projected image of a grinning bacterium. “The culprit takes the nickname, E. coli,” he said, detached himself from the organism, and continued, although the old name is colon bacillus.”
Camera flashes, journalists getting busy with their notebooks, tape recorders, microphones, and just about all sorts of gadgets were now hooked on the crux of the moment in this one little room.
Colon because the organism lodges in the human intestine and also in vertebrates. As normal inhabitants of the intestinal tract, they are gram-positive short rods that don’t form spores, nah ah. They are anaerobic, meaning they survive without oxygen. They grow at temperatures from 20 to 40 degrees Celsius,” he explained, and continued, “In a sanitary water analysis, the presence of coliform bacilli indicates fecal pollution of the water supply being tested.”
But here’s the good news for all of you,” he said, again with a proud smirk. “The environment department is proud to announce that there is no way for the E. coli to survive on seawater.” The audience now started to get restless, anxious for more answers. “Seawater is harsh enough for the E. coli to possibly survive and increase its virulence.
We are therefore pleased to announce that if there is coliform content in Boracay’s seawaters, it has and could never reach a harmful level.”
In the afternoon, after the eventful press conference, the 7-kilometer stretch of white sands of Boracay was filled to the brim by throngs of relieved citizens.
And then I thought about how we, Filipinos, are prone to wrapping up lengthy conversations with fecal matter. That was the main point that brought everybody there that eventful summer in Paradise, fecal matter.
Or coliform content, if you may put it with a bit of sophistication.
I’m not sure if that was what led the media, too, to the moonlight in Busay last week.
(For just about anything: januariusmail@yahoo.com)
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