The Voice of Unity

I grew up thinking the world revolves only around the affluent, the rich and the influential. I grew up thinking we in the rural, ethnic, marginalized societies will remain as we have always been—unheard of, unnoticed, neglected. My parents, even grandparents, all succumbed to the submission that we will remain invisible to the eyes of the country’s leaders. Worse, they had to fight countless inequities and injustice, only to end up ironically, they still remained disadvantaged.

It’s been more than three presidencies and we are still in the same shadow. Which makes me think: will we stay here for the rest of our lives?

But a few weeks ago I had my hopes see some spark. Someone as larger-than-life as Loren Legarda took the stage to announce, very well candidly, that her candidacy does not only mean a journey to victory.

She assured that in the midst of all the noise and secret whispers, the interests of a cooperative versus a mayor’s, that of a local party leader needing campaign fund for a political post versus that of a small farmers’ group, in the midst of threats from political interest groups of withdrawal of support if their leaders are not given funds—despite all these, she will listen and be the voice of truth, parity and kindness.

She believes those who manage the commons have reason to work together for the benefit of the majority. Her decision-making on issues like agriculture and environment reflects the needs for our cooperatives and farmers’ associations to prepare us for the future. She strongly advocates to teach farmers and fisherfolk in the most productive and sustainable way, and to channel resources to the farm management mechanism to integrate fragmented landholdings and attain economies of scale in production and marketing. She believes that we all can work through a collaborative action. This alone gives me a feeling of hope that she believes in the potential for greatness that every Filipino has.

Loren also believes that the root of all evil in the society lies within the smallest selfish motives of even the most ordinary citizen, which boils down to depriving others of the truth and justice. On the other hand, she pushes for an attitude than marks the tapping of everyone’s innate goodness as a milestone to attaining small achievements. Collectively, all these ‘small’ achievements will collate into one big success. Hence eventually, our society will slowly but continuously rise from the Black Hole of poverty and corruption. Loren believes that just as we have to be responsible for our own actions, we also have to be responsible to and with each other. After all, one’s failure is everyone’s downfall in the long run. Again, collectivity.

I am confident that one whisper to Loren from me will not be in vain because I know she will listen. Not just to my one voice, but to everyone else’s—irrespective of the perspective. And with this, I am equally confident that she as a leader and as person will make wise, fair and learned judgments that will benefit the majority not only because that is her obligation as a legislator and public official. She will do so because as a person, she knows very well that the dynamics of an entire country is easily likened to the minutest group wherein every voice counts.

There is hope, at least for me and my family, that she will listen to us and to all Filipinos. I am optimistic that she will be the voice of unity.

The Changing Act of the Climate

I was in grade school when I first experienced great floods where the entire municipality was submerged in chest-deep flood water. For us kids, it was just an ordinary phenomenon.

Truth is, we welcome it for we have had a big, crystal clear swimming pool in the neighborhood. We had fun swimming everyday and every minute for we thought floods will soon be gone.

But I was wrong – dead wrong. The floodwater which I thought was just a mere flashfloods was already creating havoc and inconveniences to the community. At the onset of the floods, fish cages and rice fields had already been destroyed and damage to properties were enormous.

Prices of commodities and transport fares had gone up. People got sick. And that was only on the first few days of being underwater. We practically transformed into boatpeople in our own little water world beyond Christmas. Since then, floods got deeper whenever it hits us and remain there for months.

And each time we’ve been underwater, nobody seem to care. People got used to it already as if no lessons were learned from the floods or calamities of greater height. I never heard of news item or someone from the government asked why things happen and what actions to be taken. We didn’t even discuss it in school. All I know then, floods come and go.

Unfortunately, we still disregard that Mother Nature is catching us up. We pay no attention that climate change and global warming is taking its toll. We do nothing to save our planet, yet, we contribute a lot to its destruction.

I know, however that we can do our part to pacify mother earth and suspend the fast changing act of the climate and restore its original and natural course. I know it will require a great deal of self sacrifice but we have to lift our feet to start that one little step to go a thousand miles forward. We have to do our share and act as steward of the earth to arrest and address the global problems confronting us.
If we can be pre-occupied watching the union of a political figure and broadcast personality all day, surely we can do more and find time to update ourselves with global warming and climate change issues.

One good start is to become a pro-active environment advocate. We have heard waste segregation, planting trees and more. We have a number of pro environment individuals like Sen. Loren Legarda to listen to. If we only heed her call to love and care for Mother Nature, we would not have experienced the wrath of twins Ondoy and Pepeng. We have non-government organizations or NGOs like Luntiang Pilipinas that is committed to the promotion of environmental protection and awareness of Filipinos. All we have to do is act now where we can fill in.

Good thing that the Climate Change Act of 2009 or Republic Act No. 9729 authored by Sen. Loren Legarda that would boost the Philippines’ capacity to brave threats posed by climate change has finally been signed.

The law provides the creation of the Climate Change Commission, an independent and autonomous policy-making body which would coordinate, monitor and evaluate programs and action plans to address climate change.

Kudos to Sen. Legarda, her advocacy on environmental protection paid off. It’s not too late to do our share.

Climate Change, welcome to Manila

Global warming is real, climate change is taking its full course. We are now reaping the fruits of our irresponsibility and carelessness towards nature. Nature is striking back, real hard.

It was easy to ignore the cries of Mother Nature when we are so preoccupied with work, money and family. "Why should I care about saving the earth, when I can't even stop worrying how to feed my family?", "Who cares about global warming, I am working my ass off just to get and enjoy all these luxuries...".

Then came Ondoy, he brought waters to wash away our homes, steal our livelihoods and claim lives. Then came Pepeng to second the motion, bringing more destruction than its cousin Ondoy.

How long should we Filipinos be ambivalent to this issue that we are looking face to face right at this very moment? Climate change is here, there's work to be done.

This blog was created to bring you the latest news about global warming and climate change and its effects on our beloved country, the Philippines.

Go Green or Die? The choice is yours...