GARBAGE. GSD FIle Photo.
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Ike Señeres .

AS the supposed cleanup of Boracay is moving ahead full steam, it seems that no one is talking about building Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) and Air Pollution Controllers (APCs) in the island. That seems to be an indication that most people tend to think of pollution not as a complete supply chain, but as a mixture of balkanized parts that have nothing to do with each other. Simply put, we might be able to fix the water pollution problem in Boracay, but if we could not control soil pollution and air pollution there, the whole island would still be polluted. What a waste it would be to close the island to the outside world for six month, only to find out in the end that the soil and the air are still dirty.

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Well, on our lucky day we might be able to convince all the people in Boracay that we must clean not only the water but also the soil and the air, but how could we convince them that beyond that, we should also plant more trees and do everything else to reduce the island’s carbon footprint? With all this hullabaloo about the dirty water, it seems that beyond the goal of making money from the tourism industry, we also have to balance it not only with the preservation of our environment, but also with the production of local food supplies, so that we could decrease our air pollution and therefore be able to achieve carbon neutrality or carbon synch, as others would prefer to call it.

Perhaps very few people would know about it, but there is actually a law that requires barangay governments to dig holes in their own jurisdictions to that these could become manmade ponds where the water could go to when it rains thus preventing the occurrence of floods, if you get my drift. Of course, since these holes could practically become lakes or ponds at the very least, why not stock them with fish and even escargots, so that these could generate incomes? I am sure that other than swamp cabbage, many more plants and vegetables could be grown in the water, thus even reducing hunger in some places. Since water is scarce. And since solar energy is becoming cheaper, why not filter the water so it becomes potable?

In case we have already forgotten it, we also have a Clean Air Act that is supposed to ensure that our people will be free from air pollution, in these present times and in the future generations. With that and the Clean Water Act plus the laws requiring solid waste management, we should never have to worry about pollution of any kind, and this archipelago would be like paradise islands. Well, I am sure that I am not exaggerating, because I know for a fact that these places where we live were just like paradise islands where even angels might want to live, except that some people who worked for money and mammon, people who think like demons have come to pollute our waters, soil and air.

Not that I would want to sound sarcastic, but as a people, we seem to be very good in making laws, even if we are seemingly no good in obeying them. From another perspective, we could say that on one hand, the government agencies may be no good in implementing them either. Either way, the real story is that democracy is a two way street, because the social contract says that we citizens must do our part in obeying the laws as the government does its part in implementing them. After all that has been said and done however, the bottom line is that our waters, air and soils are still polluted, perhaps not only for now but also for good.

Just as it is said that all politics are local, then perhaps we should say that all anti-pollution campaigns should also be local. Of course, the President and his Cabinet could always take the lead from where they are, but since this is a battlefield, it is the Mayors and the Governors who should be in the trenches, getting their hands dirty if they must. We may not be hearing the statistics yet, but we may have reached the point where those who die from pollution in our streets may already exceed the numbers of those who die from road accidents. As it is now, no one has been reported dying from thirst, but drought has been known to happen in many other countries and we may not be an exception.

Just as garbage collection has fallen victim to corruption in the computation of trucking rates and tipping fees, corruption may have already affected the implementation of emission laws so much so that the levels of carbon dioxide in our streets have gone higher than before. Admittedly, I may be listening to a different drummer, but I do believe that the way to reduce the number of vehicles in our roads and roadways is to strictly implement our vehicle emission laws. And if we do that, we could have the added bonus of having cleaner air aside from having faster traffic flows. I hope that in the end, we will not end up blaming the voters for voting into office those who are not just corrupt, but are clueless about what to do with the environment.

 

E-mail: iseneres@yahoo.com

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