Saturday, September 13, 2008 Editorial: Landslides and the people
PHOTOS and stories about the Masara landslide dominated last week's news, and yet another news sneaks in of another landslide, this time in Davao del Sur.
It was of a lesser extent in terms of numbers but equally as devastating as two children were the victims, buried by mud in their hinterland home in Barangay Pangaleon Malita, Davao del Sur.
In the next few days, we can expect concern and lobbies for better forest management. But for how long that will last, we can safely bet on one week, beyond that, we can never be sure. Our short memory as a people is well documented, we only need to try to recall who Jun Lozada is to understand. The hero of just over two months ago seems now such a faint memory of a time so long ago, and yet it isn't even six months ago yet.
That short memory, however, may be our undoing as the rains continue to fall and our region's landscape has to groan under so much water with just shallow secondary or even residual growth forest roots holding the ground together.
We only have to look around us to see the mountains, denuded all. And yet there is no collective and massive effort to bring back the old growth. We only have to look out the airplane window to see how wide a swath of Davao Gulf turns brown during these rainy days, and yet, we snort at those who raise concerns about siltation, nitrate pollution, and yes, the still controversial aerial spray ban. It's as if the people would prefer to be blind to their contributions to all these devastation, and put the blame on long-gone entities like the illegal loggers of the 1970s.
We are not to blame; we would prefer to console ourselves, as we sit around, sneering at environmentalists.
We are not to blame, we tell ourselves as we browse through photos of orange-clothed rescuers digging up tons of earth.
We are not to blame, we say, as we pick out through our old clothes to donate some for the victims.
We are not to blame, we tell each other, and yet the last time we did plant a tree, complete with our name on it was last year, and it's not even on those denuded slopes -- too far away, we say.
We are not to blame, as we console ourselves with our corporate social responsibility that saw us putting in seedlings in ready-made holes, and haven't returned to water even one single seedling... and the rains continue to fall, the soil continues to loosen, and the river builds up. Where next? Who next? Pray that it's not you or your kin.
