Sunday, September 17, 2006
Estremera: I am not a banana
By Stella A. Estremera
Spider's Web
SHAMPOOS have chemicals, how else can they make your hair smooth and give a vestige of marketing claims that you can use one sachet and have hair that looked like it has undergone a P6,000 salon work. We lather these same chemicals on our head everyday. After all it promises us hair so smooth, so shiny, "para kang nagpa-salon."
But despite these safe chemicals in a shampoo, the only time someone puts shampoo on someone else is when that's his/her job, she/he has been asked to, or it's her kid she's shampooing.
As my buddy said, if he goes around with a water sprayer full of shampoo and sprays this on people walking by, he'll get in trouble. Not because shampoo is poison, but because he squirted it on people who didn't want to be shampooed right at that very moment.
He can't say, "Okay lang yan, pare, shampoo lang naman 'yan eh."
Detergent soaps have chemicals. So much chemicals such that they can remove stains, soften dirt, and make clothes white. But, we dip our hands into the washing machine tub or palanggana after pouring detergent or wetting a bareta and then get our hands lathered with the soap suds. After all, these chemicals are safe, they can't kill unless we drink maybe a 50-gallon pailful or two everyday for so many days.
Despite these safe chemicals, we only use detergent on stuff that need detergent. Soiled clothes, used utensils, stuff we need to wash clean.
And, if I go around lugging a palanggana of water to drench one person and then scrub detergent or bareta on him, then I'll get into trouble. Saying, "Okay lang yan pare, hindi naman nakakalason 'yan" will not get me out of that trouble.
All people spit, especially if we accidentally put in some unpleasant-tasting stuff into our mouth. It's natural to spit. But, we don't spit at each other except in a very extreme desire to express disgust or to put someone down (complete with the musical score of dramatic soaps) and during those times when we were not yet taught good manners and right conduct.
Now, if in an outrageous situation someone asks you to spit on him, then that's okay. But if I spit on someone who didn't ask for it, I'll get into trouble. And as my buddy again said we wouldn't be able to get out of that trouble by saying, "Okay lang yan pare, wala naman akong sipon." Whether I have the virus or not is not the point. The point is being spitted on.
Banana pesticides have chemicals designed to kill banana pests. They were formulated to spray on bananas. Now, the question: If we don't spit at each other, shampoo someone who doesn't want to be shampooed, and lather someone with detergent when he/she didn't ask to be lathered, then why are some people insisting that they can spray pesticides on people who never asked to be sprayed even with water?
Simplistic? Yes. But it's simply because the argument is so simple -- it's all about my right to say, "I do not want to be sprayed."
The mayor never said pesticides will be banned in banana plantations. The mayor only said, aerial spraying will be banned. (He also said if you want the aerial spray then sniff it all). And rightfully so, because the environmentalists (much as they'd want to) and Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy's flock are not saying banana plantations should not use one single chemical in their plants, they are only saying, ban the aerial spraying.
The meat of the argument is on the mode of application because this not only sprinkles on bananas but on people as well. The answer that the plantation owners should be pushing forward should be how they can make sure these same liquid, not even a single drop, will not land on anything -- especially people who have clearly said they do not want a single drop of that -- other than bananas.
How? There's the so-called buffer zone for one. Or, they can put up a barrier as high as their spray plane flies to ensure that all the liquid intended to be sprayed on their bananas land only on their bananas; not on someone else's bananas, coconuts, tomato, house, road, body...
At the center of the question is a very simple argument that could have easily turned the tide against the plantations, and thus the plantations want the argument to tackle chemical formulations instead. Do the people want to be sprayed or not? They have already said: They don't want to be sprayed.
Now onto whether the chemical is harmful or not... of course the plantations have all the resources to show that the chemicals are safe. Very safe. But they also had the resources to show that plantation workers will be safe while spraying DBCP (dibromochloropropane) for as long as they wear the proper protective gears. The plantations were proven wrong a generation later, by then the plantation workers' reproductive systems were no longer functioning, and they are facing the risk, if not already dying, of cancer.
Are the chemicals being sprayed on banana plantations safe? They could be. After all they were formulated with the environment and the workers' condition in mind, what with strict global environmental laws. But they were not formulated FOR the environment and the workers' condition. Rather, they were formulated FOR banana pests. Last time I looked, I don't resemble a banana pest nor did that child I met a few months back... so, why are these children getting drops of aerial spray? And how would I know what scientific findings there will be a generation from now, in the same way that happened with DBCP?
The bottomline... this debate that banana plantations are trying to gag is all about the right of each and every child out there not to be spitted on when they don't want to be spitted. It's all about my right to declare, "I am not a banana so don't spray banana pest fungicide on me." And that's why I refuse to be gagged.
saestremera@yahoo.com
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (September 17, 2006 issue)
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