Why I’m worried about chickens

By Elson Elizaga

TEN years before Gloria Macapagal Arroyo put on a neck brace to avail of the benefits of hospital arrest, she signed a useless document called “The Ecological Management Act of 2000.” The purpose of this law was grand and heartwarming as usual: “to ensure the protection of public health and environment.” She signed it on Jan. 27, 2001. That is 19 years ago, enough time for a woman to give birth to 19 children, in theory, including triplets. 

One of the described prohibited activities in the Act is the “open burning of solid waste.” It is an interesting concept, but many people do not take this advice seriously because it does not explain anything. Some are confused about “solid waste.” We thought it meant manure. Why would the government tell its citizens not to burn their manure?

Also, nothing in the Act warns us of the danger. The words associated with inhaling smoke from garbage, such as “cancer”, “brain damage”, “immune system”, “lungs”, “depression”, and “deformed babies” are absent in the document. We find these words only from research sites about “dioxin”, “styrene” and “Agent Orange”. And these sites are mostly foreign. 

So, for 19 years nobody paid attention. The other glitch is this Act contradicts a massive air-pollution project called the 4 o’clock habit, a communal, daily burning of trash that is supposed to annihilate the dreaded mosquitoes. I know for an opinion that this method is insane. Because for 19 years, I have seen on TV several communities burned to the ground, but the mosquitoes always return and multiply. Like James Cameron’s aliens, they factory-clone themselves for eternity. Even if an international association of arsonists brings hell to the entire Johndorf Subdivision (a.k.a. PN Roa Locust Housing), these bloodsuckers will survive. 

We believe that by burning garbage we succeed in removing them from our village, but we non-scientists are mistaken. What happens is chemistry and fire magic. Solid transforms into poison gas that penetrates our bodies. 

 In my previous column, I mentioned The Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF). In their pamphlet, they wrote that burning plastic “can increase the risk of heart disease, aggravate respiratory ailments such as asthma and emphysema, and cause rashes, nausea, or headaches, damages in the nervous system, kidney or liver, and in the reproductive and development system.” 

One of the chemicals produced by burning garbage is dioxin. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system, and can interfere with hormones.” 

This information explains my anxiety about the community of fighting cocks living behind the basketball and tennis courts in our place. People burn garbage there and in the plaza so frequently that several ugly black mounds have emerged like miniature volcanoes. Every day the roosters inhale toxic air because they are not wearing gas masks. And because the poisons are airborne, chicken, ducks, and quails in far places are also contaminated.

So, I can imagine the effect of pollution on their health; they only have tiny brains. I wish the fighting cocks good luck in the derby. I hope they are not infected by bird flu since their immune systems are already compromised. If they die in battle, and we consume them dipped with chili sauce, we ingest the chemicals in their tissues, and when we encounter the Wuhan coronavirus, ni hao, we will become zombies in 10 seconds flat. Then, even if we carry our IDs to the funeral parlors and request to be hastily cremated, we will be refused, like garbage.