Viewpoint
Let this be our time for sowing

This article is based on a speech delivered by Hon. Mario K. Espinosa, vice governor and presiding officer of the Provincial Board of Masbate, at the opening of the First Provincial Conference on Environment Towards the Formulation and Installation of the Masbate Provincial Environment Code, June 26, 2000, Bituon Beach Resort, Mobo, Masbate.

Masbate Vice Governor Mario K. Espinosa at Masbate's
First Environmental Conference (A. Sia, 2000)

an's relationship with his world has been one of use, abuse and regulation. That's probably because this relationship hasn't been an easy one. Man has had to struggle against the whims and vagaries of nature. That struggle is even more pronounced here in our country. Being in the circum-Pacific belt and the Pacific ring of fire, our country is constantly stricken by typhoons, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

That is also probably why many of us are the carpe-diem-seize-the-day-live-today-die-tomorrow kind of people. It takes an Epicurean kind of philosophy to live in this corner of the globe. If not, it's just so easy to give up, climb the wall and jump. What would you do if you spent three months tending your field - magtanim ay di biro, maghapong nakayuko, di naman makaupo, di naman makatayo - knee-deep in mud, easy target for leeches and mosquitoes, only to have it all blown away by one typhoon? Do you scream your lungs in frustration? Commit suicide? No, like everyone else, you take it all in stride. Cry some, curse some, and start again. C'est la vie. That's life, here today, gone tomorrow.

Which is why we believe in what Qoheleth said: All things are passing. So take what you can, enjoy it, why worry about tomorrow?

No more superstition

It's a tedious process of unfolding, this relationship we have with nature. We used to be ruled by fear. We wouldn't even throw water on an anthill without saying, "Pardon us, Old Man in the Hill." We were afraid to cut trees then, for fear of the fairies' and the netherworld's creatures' wrath.

That's how we were then, and we say we know better now. We are no longer superstitious. We're more enlightened. After all, aren't we rational beings? There are no fairies, they're not real. Hey, it's okay - cut all the trees you can, throw your trash wherever you please, on land, into the river, into the sea.

So, here we are. How do we like it?

Not much, I guess. That's why these days, some of us spend much of our time mollifying nature, trying to make amends.

The Pandora in us

In our struggle to survive, we've learned to live with nature: to use it and abuse it. We do that all the time, that's why we're such good survivors. We push everything to its limits. We conquer, we subdue, we master. Too bad for nature, in the order of things, mastery always comes last.

Unfortunately for us, though the Greeks say it was Prometheus - Foresight himself - who fashioned us from clay, most of us take after Pandora. We grab nature as a gift box, tear it open and, when it strikes back at us with Jack-in-the-Box tricks like El Niño, La Niña, the ozone hole, we can only gape aghast: "Ooppps, wrong move, dude."

Enter the heroes to clean up the mess. And who are they? The legislators, who else? Although often, people would say, "Too late the heroes." I hope not in this case.

"Stop! Why has our fishers' catch gone down?"

                                                                             (Photo: A. Sia, 2000)

But what they say is true. Often, we think only of regulation when there's trouble. It's the only time we say, "Stop! Why has our fishers' catch gone down? Can't we do something to stop dynamite and cyanide fishing? Can't we stop people from throwing garbage into the sea? Look at our bald forests - why don't we replant, impose a log ban on remaining forest stands?"

Lucky for us, not all of us are Pandoras. Fortunately, there are Epimetheuses among us. We may not have foresight, but at least we learn by hindsight.

Legalese for our time

I think we need to update our language. If we must do something novel, I think we can manage in this area. Legislative jargon hasn't been revolutionalized since the days of Hammurabi. "Save water or else!" - the reward and punishment mode. But in this day and age, when watching the evening news, which is more like watching a horror movie than anything else, when that is the accepted form of entertainment, when bungee jumping is considered fun, what can you threaten people with?

Fines? In an increasingly cashless world?

Forty whiplashes? And let the Commission on Human Rights have its day?

I think the installation of the Environment Code - or any law for that matter - hinges on mass-based consultations during the formulation. Its appeal will depend on how well we articulate contemporary metaphors and idioms.

(Photo: A. Sia, 2000)

"[The Environmental Code's] appeal will depend on how well we articulate contemporary metaphors and idioms."

Maybe the laws we need now are unforgettable one-liners in the likes of Chevy Chase's "Save water, shower with a friend." How can you improve on that? It's witty, catchy and simply irresistible. People are bound to notice it, repeat it, and act on it. "Save water, shower with a friend" isn't such a hard act to follow, is it?

The Earth has outlived the great dinosaurs, there's little doubt it will go on and on with no help from us, thank you very much. We're not saying here that we're saving the Earth per se. We're saying we're saving the Earth from us. As somebody once said, the Earth risks being eutrophied by humans. From the peaks of Mount Everest to the wilderness of the Antartica,

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared, with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell…

Those are the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the one great Promethean freak of our time.

Not many years ago, we never ventured out without the essential anting-anting (amulet). We instilled discipline in our children by saying, "Watch it, kid, ghosts eat naughty kids!"

These days, we can't leave our homes without the indispensable cellphone, which allows us to keep in touch with every friend and neighbor through text messaging. We live in the information age, when even the most impassioned declaration of true love -

But soft!
What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and you are the sun…

Even that gets a rejoinder like, "Sez who?" (Shakespeare said that, of course.)

But what I'm saying is, if we must impose restrictions on people's activities, then we must be prepared to explain why. And our explanation must be based on solid facts, not emotional grounds.

No easy solutions

I imagine future generations would look down on our efforts today with knowing smiles just as we are now smirking at our forefathers' attempts to deal with their own environmental problems. There was a time when lawmakers had to address the issue of the nightmarish scenario, when, so-called experts warned, "in the very near future, if we do not regulate the use of horse-drawn carriages, whole towns will be buried in horse manure."

That would have been a sight, and the stench, indescribable. I can almost see those lawmakers knocking their heads off over this: Declare horseless days. But even if horses are kept in their stables, they still have to answer the call of nature. What then? Slaughter them by the hundreds?

When faced with similar problems, our forefathers - our very own legislators -just took the bull by the horn, so to speak. What to do when you have a whole town covered in cow dung? Call it Kataihan ("dung-full"), and leave the rest to future generations. Constant usage and the passage of time will gloss it over, prettify it.

And sure enough, we now have this vibrant town called Cataingan. Talk about originality! Where else in the world will you find a town named after cow dung?

Well, if nothing else, man is truly creative. We cleaned up our horse manure and cow dung mess with the invention of the automobile. For a while, we thought this new invention was perfect. It made travel several times faster, minus the stench and worry about watering and feeding the horses. Then we saw how our ozone layer reacted it.

So, now, it's our turn to bang our heads together. What to do?

Well, maybe we'll consider car-less days, and rediscover that the wonder of our evolution as upright bipeds took millions of years. Indeed, why not? While we claim to have the great brains that conceived cars, airplanes and submarines, let it be said here that the birds beat us into evolving wings from being mere bipeds. See how they go! On wings - and we, even though we're bipeds, prefer to go around on our buttocks most of the time. Shame.

(Photo: A. Sia, 2000)

"What may work for us is the surprise that nature could spring on us."

That elusive hope

Rue the wicked things the Pandora in us has unleashed…! But, hey, look again. Inside our box, there remains elusive hope to keep us from committing suicide. What may work well for us is the surprise that nature could spring on us. For all our pride in our discoveries, we still don't know much about nature's power to regenerate itself, that dearest freshness deep down things. Even if we've ravaged our resources, we still have that to work on.

Let this be our time for sowing - seeds of hope, if nothing else. Hope for the flowers. Hope for our future. Hope for us.

Yes, us.

Can you imagine a world where there's only us? No trees, no birds, no mangroves, no dolphins, no corals?

Yeah, maybe we'll survive that, too, intelligent beings that we are.

But then again, wouldn't it be a lonely world without them?

A stanza from a popular Filipino folk song "Magtanim ay di biro", which has been loosely translated to English as follows:

Planting rice is never fun
Bent from morning till the set of sun
Cannot stand and cannot eat
Cannot rest a little bit

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