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IT was
one of the rarest scenes in the world: tamaraws running
wild and free, the grasses tall and green, the forest
unseen but seemingly there and undisturbed. From afar,
the tamaraws look like sturdy deer. Their horns
characteristically V-shaped compared with the carabaos’,
which are curved. They have always been compared with
carabaos but they seem more graceful, their tinier
compact build a grace of wildlife.
Last
Tuesday’s Reporter’s Notebook on GMA gave us that
gift. With all the bickerings between the two giant
media companies, it is almost an act of God that a
particular show would rise above the battle, ease itself
out of the warfront and just deal with the more
important things in life and in this world—the
environment. Never mind if the script of Maki Pulido
sounds like a rehash of the usually angry words of radio
announcers when they become enervated about issues for
the sake of enervation.
The
documentary was about the environment. Not again, you
might say, but again and again we can always talk about
our surroundings and it will never be enough. We can
never terminate any discourse about the environment for
as we know it, a clock is going tick tock and it is not
going to sound a ring of jubilation but an alarm for
extinction.
I myself
never imagined that the day will come when the
environment itself will be as contentious a topic as
religion. Mention the environment and you have all over
you debates that go the range of the political Left and
the political Right, with all the hidden agenda in
between.
In
Pulido’s discourse, the environment is a composite of
those disappearing—the tamaraw and other wildlife—and
those appearing (pollution). In between are humans,
those who seek to guard the environment and those who,
unwittingly or unknowingly, destroy its elements.
If the
tamaraw is a grace to behold in the wild, the forest
guards or rangers who work to protect the forest are
hidden gems in a nation that seems determined to wipe
out Nature in its best form. A particular forest guard
has remained contractual for many years, rendering
services for a bureaucracy that is structurally inutile
in a nation that appears to be headstrong and determined
to wipe out its forest lands. He stays in this humblest
of huts and is forever exposed to the elements. He tells
us his family understands that he can never see them
regularly because his job is to be there in the forest.
In one frame, he is shown seated in his hut, the rains
outside strong. He is a lonely, solitary figure and we
know why. We are not with him. We will never be like
him. We will never understand his dedication. He is not
pathetic, we are. And the forest, with him alone, will
be gone. We will rhapsodize the loss, for that is the
best we can under this grave situation. Otherwise, we
remain shameless.
And so
we have the dirtiest river. When Pulido declares, using
the data from some sources, that
Marilao River is the
second-dirtiest river in the world, I cannot protest. My
instinct, in fact, is to think of a river that is even
dirtier. I even insist that the camera does not capture
the filth of that body of water. I know that if the
researchers did their job, they would have been able to
identify more bodies of water all competing for the
title “The Dirtiest.”
The
second part of the presentation has Jiggy Manicad
talking about the “Costs of Delay,” the ballooning of
expenses when projects are not properly done and
completed on time. It is interesting to see informants
looking terribly conscious of their responsibilities. A
project meant to cost P3 billion has now jumped to P5
billion. A dike that is reported to be already completed
has caused water to seep and stay stagnant in the other
parts of the area. So much for engineering, so much for
planning.
At the
end, we are creating green courts. A conference held in
2007 pushed the Philippine Judicial Academy to recommend
to the Supreme Court of the Philippines. The result is
the approval of the resolution forming 117 environmental
or “green” courts. Some 45 lower courts were made into
Forestry Courts. With the other courts, these green
courts are meant to address with dispatch violations of
environmental laws pending in the courts
In the
meantime, we have forest and wildlife programs vastly
underfunded. The Tamaraw Conservation Project is said to
be running on a P3 million fund. That must be the
equivalent of a household budget per month of a
politician or an entertainer.
In the
meantime, our forests are dwindling. We know that a
major reason for the disappearance of the tamaraw is the
disappearance of the forest and woodlands. Figures show
that in
Mindoro, 80 percent of the forest land has gone down to 3 percent or even less.
I am not surprised if that glorious scene of tamaraws
running across the grassland will be the last that we
will see of them.
As for
the dirty river, I feel it is so dirty we cannot do
anything about it. But I know we can and should do
something about it. Throughout the presentation, I felt
irritated. I thought it was how the documentary was
being presented. But it was not because of the approach.
It was because of the content that overwhelmed and made
me feel the darkest of shame. |
