NO AMOUNT of effort in flood control and sewerage management will be effective if we continue to trash our country. Even if we install a thousand pumping stations, our streets will still be flooded because of clogged drainage. When will we ever learn?
Prior to creating awareness on global warming and climate change, we have been experiencing floods since the ‘60s and the ‘70s and yet not much has been done to alter our seemingly hopeless situation each time torrential rains come.
We have to be very careful what we pray for. During high temperatures, we ask for rains then when we experience continuous rains, we pray for it to stop. Actually, we do not really know what to pray for when the world is confronted with global phenomenon... cracked farm lands, flooded barangays, bush fires, rising water levels that engulf coastal areas and low water levels in dams that compel water rationing.
This phenomenon is a stern warning for mankind to change or else we are doomed to lose everything. God created all things, big and small, and these will not only be reduced to scarcity but to nothingness due to our ignominy, negligence and indifference.
Realization of what we have failed to do is not enough. Getting involved in tree planting, preservation of coral reefs and mangroves and in the propagation of artificial reefs are not enough either to restore what was in abundance before, unless we triple our efforts to protect our environment. Appreciate what we have at our disposal but dispose everything in accordance with all the guidelines given us for an eco-friendly world.
President Rodrigo Duterte is calling for “single use” plastic ban. An environmentalist trying to give us a reality check cautioned that all the discarded empty sachets are enough to cover our archipelago. Therefore what are we to do with our “sachet” economy? Should we go back to the times when our grandparents sling a native basket in their arms on their way to the wet market? All unwrapped purchases end up in the basket. I remember those times when a live fish jumped out of the basket and a live crab inched its way to the top of the basket then pinching my grandmother.
By the way, stop releasing balloons as part of a symbolic gesture during events. These balloons end up in the open seas and kill marine resources... fishes, shellfish, turtles and squid get choked.
There is no such thing as “one small act” if it were our last bastion to save our planet.