ON SURVIVING STORMS
A note from the editor
As I type out this last note for 2020, many Filipinos are still trying to get their bearings after a super typhoon hit Luzon. So, dear reader, I don’t want to insult you by slow-walking you to a foregone conclusion. Instead, let me say what I’m sure you already know: We are the ones responsible for scorching – and unleashing superstorms on – this earth.
Are we still throwing away single-use plastic instead of investing in reusables? Are we still using money instead of morals as our criterion for progress? Are we still supporting animal agriculture despite its being a top driver for climate change as declared by the United Nations Environment Programme? Then, sadly, we are the ones fueling the very storms we have to endure.
Our broken relationship with the world has led to not only the destruction of human property, but also the deaths of non-human neighbors. We are driving animals, not to mention ourselves, further into extinction. For instance, koalas have become a vulnerable species, which Isone Alis talks about in this issue. The cotton-top tamarin, whom Cacai Buenviaje writes about in our cover story, is now listed as critically endangered.
Not only is our careless existence leading to a mass extinction, but it’s also wreaking havoc on ecological balance. Here’s a perfect example: The many Finlayson’s squirrels running about in Metro Manila and killing off endemic species cannot be blamed for their behavior; it was us who brought them here, as Janina Castro explains. The pandemic, brought about by a zoonotic disease, was caused by a coronavirus that jumped from animals to humans, because we can’t leave animals well off alone – and Dr. Emmanuel Macapagal talks about coronaviruses in animals in this issue to put a stop to misinformation.
The fires and typhoons ravaging our planet is linked to our broken relationship with nature and its sentient inhabitants: the animals. Perhaps it’s because we still view animals as objects instead of living, breathing beings who have their own quirks, thoughts, and feelings. Perhaps it’s time we reexamined how we treat them, including how we use animals in our own language, which is what our newest columnist Kisha Aleena Abuda talks about in her corner, rightly titled The Elephant in the Room.
Perhaps we should start answering for old mistakes by opening our homes to animals in need, which our cat columnist Gia Lara focuses on in her piece about cat adoption. Perhaps we should also welcome other animals – not just furry, fluffy mammals – as members of our family, and Zoe Salvador tells us what we need to know before we start caring for spiders.
This is not the last super typhoon we need to survive, and if we want a better chance of thriving instead of just surviving, we better get our act together. Meanwhile, I’m hugging my cats and reassuring them – myself, really – that by keeping their non-human cousins off my plate, I’m doing the best I can to ensure we still have a bright future on this planet, typhoons notwithstanding.