Earth Day 2018 A
pril 22 is Earth Day and it behooves upon all us the sons and daughters of Mother Earth (called in Latin as Gaia) to now reflect on the state of the environment. For the ecological people (farmers, lumads and fisherfolk) who for decades were taking direct actions (human barricades) to protect Gaia, we firmly believe that protecting God’s vanishing creation is the highest form of worship.
Her name is Gaia (Mother Earth) and today Gaia is in deep pain and hemorrhaging without let-up and is now dying. We are now on the 18th year of the 21st century but we do not know whether we can reach the 22nd century which is only 82 years from now. Yes, the unimaginable is becoming imaginable: the end of life on earth. Let us now diagnose Gaia.
Her “lungs” (the forests) are almost gone. In the Philippines, only 8% of that “lungs” remain as the 17 million hectares of dipterocarp forests have been ravaged, causing the massacre of all life forms that dwelt in the forest ecosystem for billions of years. In the uplands of Cagayan de Oro, Lanao and Bukidnon, the 200 thousand hectares of dipterocarp forest had been totally logged without let-up for five decades by six logging companies that had violated all the environmental laws prohibiting them to log in areas with altitude of more than one thousand meters above sea level or in slope with more than 50% gradient. All areas logged by the loggers were within these prohibited zones. They did not even do their obligation to do replanting. The DENR must be made accountable why that office did not enforce the environmental laws in the past years.
Her “veins” (the rivers) are either drained or heavily polluted as 25 major rivers in our country are biologically dead. We have already lost 75% of our mangroves (the spawning grounds of fish) and only 5% is in excellent condition. Our coral reefs, that delicate gift from Providence have been heavily destroyed through dynamite fishing and “muroami.” How stupid were we when during the time of the dictatorship, the Philippines entered into an agreement with Japan (the RP-Japan Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation) which allowed the Japanese computerized trawlers and fishing vessels to literally rake our seas. The Philippines was described then as the “center of the center of marine life on earth.” Now gone forever!
Her “fever” (global warming) lingers, causing Her so much discomfort, i.e. colds (storms), sneezing (typhoons), shakings (earthquakes), and deliriums (tsunamis). Her “stomach” (the oceans) is now so upset as the seas rise and the glaciers melt. Her “skin” (the 6-inch top layer of the earth – the soil that gives life) has been scalped through mindless mining operations and “blood” (the water table) has been injected with toxic chemicals through conventional agriculture. In Mindanao alone, the 200,000 hectares of plantation are intensively applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides that as if some 2,000 dump trucks are unloading chemicals to our water table everyday. In fact, based on studies, of the 14 types of chemicals, 8 are already banned abroad. That is why so many Filipinos are dying of cancer.
All told, Gaia has been sacrificed to the altar of greed and profit based on a flawed development paradigm, giving credence to money must grow principle called neo-liberal capitalism. Unbridled materialism