The virtue of selfishness

LOOKING back at the reason for my involve ment-in hatching and running some projects, I’m tempted to borrow Ayn Rand’s title, “The Virtue of Selfishness” as reason for such advocacies, although perhaps in a difference vein.

For one, “Ecowalk” the on-going environmental program for children at the Busol Watershed, evolved after Dr. Julie Cabato confirmed I was diabetic. The signs started coming in immediately after the July 16, 1990 earthquake that I was and had become a sugar magnate without a hacienda.

“You need to exercise daily to burn sugar,” Dr. Cabato told me. Taking the queue, I thought of a program to force me to walk, exercise and burn sugar on a daily basis. I contacted colleagues in media and, together, we hatched “Ecowalk”, a simple program of bringing kids to trace the source of the water coming out of their home faucets to the Busol Watershed. There, the kids identify plants and trees, insects, drink water from the source and then plant a tree which they pledge to take care of as their own “family tree”.

As more children wanted to experience the program, volunteers from the “Timpuyog ti Iit” and I would hike daily to Busol, bringing children so excited to know where their water comes from and to add their own trees to the watershed.

The program evolved out of my need to burn my sugar through walking up Busol with kids, burning my sugar, delaying its eventual result that came 20 years after the project began. That was more than three years ago, when nephrologist, Dr. Josefina Luspian told me gently that diabetes had destroyed my kidneys and that I had to start undergoing bloodcleansing or dialysis four=times-a- week to survive.

Beyond providing the opportunity for kids to trace their water source, the project evolved out of my need for self-preservation, to delay the eventual and most devastating result called total kidney failure.

Luckily, “Eco=-walk” won for the city a “GalingPook” award as one of the country’s most effective and innovative local government programs. The recognition prompted the Civil Service Commission to step up my salary grade at city hall. The promotion was questioned by a department