CALL NOAH

By Reymundo Salao
Askal Projection
The Guardian, Iloilo City
August 12, 2005

Is it sunny outside? Well, you can't really trust the weather by just looking outside the window anymore. You can't trust that sunshine; bring your jacket and your umbrella. In the case of this city, whenever you talk about rain, then, you can inevitably talk about floods. Flooded streets, flooded roads, flooded city. To quote a friend of mine, the floods in this city are an almost-annual occurrence that never misses to happen. It's that time when crossing the street feels like crossing the Yangtze river. Hours later, you'll be cursed by a killing flu, or leptospirosis. Much later, an entire nation of mosquitoes rise out of the floodwater and begin their reign of dengue. One of the many causes of this? …all because many of us are just idiotically taking our surroundings for granted. We throw plastic EVERYWHERE. We smoke and just simply get rid the butts right under our butt, oblivious to the fact that each time we do these (oh, unconscious and negligent) acts of stupidity, we doom ourselves with the side-effects that nature most willingly will lecture us with.

Many of the opinions I've read about this subject matter point to street vendors and how they are accused of being the filth that causes the eventual damage to our little urban ecosystem. While that may have some level of truth, it just seems too hypocritical to generalize the blame on them. Most of them are too underprivileged to afford decent garbage disposal equipments, much less afford a decent home. In addition, many of them are just too ignorant to be too conscious on the matter. One appropriate solution to this is a really efficient information drive. Let these people understand that they must have limits to what abuse they do to the urban ecosystem. Because it is them who are the direct victims of the calamities that may be caused by these acts of negligence.

Another solution is providing these sidewalk stalls (as part of the apparent city beautification program) with a proper sidewalk stall system; garbage cans and public toilets. And letting some stall-owners understand that they would have the responsibility of these facilities. But that kind of solution is just too utopian. There will be the pessimistic possibility that such facilities would fall into being abused and worn-out. These poor stall owners and street people are not to be blamed. Each and every citizen also has an obligation to keep the city clean. ESPECIALLY these large commercial companies. I've actually been disturbed by this one incident not too long ago when I was crossing a bridge on this city and witnessed that this commercial complex was dumping some kind of reddish watery material (like water with red dye) from their drainage system, and into the river. I'm not sure if that was just sheer coincidence or if that was a regular activity of said commercial complex. Nowadays it's easy for capitalists to ignore laws that have to do with the environment. Sometimes, I get too rebellious and become a reckless litterbug whenever I'm inside the mall as a form of demonstration for my friends to witness as I impart my little motto of urban ecosystem: "Malls have janitors; Mother Nature doesn't.