essays about natural calamities caused by destruction of environment, how these made people's lives miserable and how people can prevent these things to happen.
Ormoc residents in search of their love ones, after flashflood hit in November 1991.
SPC after the flood
the dead bodies of the flood victims hauled by dump trucks
The dead bodies scattered (nagpasad lang ang mga patay pagkahuman sa lunop)
One of the most horrible natural calamities that I’ve witness was the flashflood that hit Ormoc in 1991. I was only 11 years old then, and even in the neighboring town of Palompon, more than 60 kms from Ormoc, electricity and water was cut for one month. More than 8,000 lives perished during that fateful November 5, 1991.
It was perceived by many as caused by massive deforestation and other environmental destruction. Makalilisang ang panimalos sa kinaiyahan nga atong gipamanamastamasan, gidagmalan ug way kukalouy nga gi-abusohan. Karon, ug sa umaabot, ang panimalos sa kinaiyahan atong nasinati…..
TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines—In Tabon-tabon, a poor town in Leyte, if it’s plastic, it’s legal tender.
The town’s government started accepting plastics as payment for services, food or as barter item for financial aid in a bid to promote its recycling campaign.
Rustico Balderian, mayor of the fifth class municipality about 30 km south of here, said the town government started accepting clean plastic materials in March 2009 as payment for services from the municipal government.
Plastics such as bottles, sachets, broken parts of chairs and others are accepted as payment by the town.
If a resident has a kilogram of clean plastic materials, he could exchange this with medicines or a kilogram of rice.
Licenses, permits
Plastics, according to the mayor, are also accepted as payment for marriage licenses or business permits. Residents needing an ambulance may pay for the service with a kilogram of plastic. The use of an ambulance would otherwise cost a resident P300 for its fuel load.
The municipal government, according to Balderian, also dropped its program of dole to poor residents.
Now, any resident in need of cash may bring used plastic for cash. A kilogram of used plastic would fetch P300; 2 kg, P500; and 3 kg, P1,000.
Balderian recalled that the scheme was used in the recent boxing match of Manny Pacquiao. Residents who wanted to see the live broadcast of the fight were asked to pay in used plastics—2 kg for front seats and 1 kg for other seats.
The mayor said the recycling program worked wonders as residents learned to segregate plastics from their daily trash.
He said it also weaned away some residents from resorting to stealing during lean months—July to August—when there’s no work to do in the farms as harvests are over.
Plastic savings
Husbands who have pregnant wives start saving early clean plastic materials so they would not pay in cash for the diesel of the ambulance.
As in all programs, however, there’s a downside to Balderian’s recycling campaign.
“There is now a shortage of plastic materials in town,” Balderian said in an interview Sunday in his hometown.
The used plastics are turned into bags, slippers, bricks and tiles that are sold in markets outside town.
“This provides income to the municipality and jobs to some of our people,” said the mayor.
Workers in three-wheeled vehicles, known in the town as “pogpog,” collect the used plastics.
They are brought to a facility in the town that has a shredder, a boiler and a bioreactor (some sort of a machine) that process garbage, including the used plastic.
Aside from making recycled products, the town also produces fertilizer from organic trash that it sells for P5 per kg.
Balderian said he presented his town’s solid waste management program at the “Zero Basura” caravan held in this city last week and was attended by town mayors in the region.
“Many of them want to replicate it in their towns,” he said. Vicente Labro, Inquirer Visayas
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Taken from article: Mud and rain slow landslide rescue efforts By Richard C. Paddock and Alex Santos, Los Angeles Times | February 19, 2006
GUINSAUGON, Philippines -- Rescue workers and soldiers searched for survivors without success yesterday in the sea of mud that covers what was a thriving village of more than 1,800 people. Authorities said more than 1,000 of the inhabitants of this remote village on Leyte Island are missing and may have died in the landslide that struck Friday morning after two weeks of heavy rain. Rescuers, who had reported pulling 57 survivors from the muck Friday, said they did not find any survivors yesterday. With the mud 30 feet deep, it was nearly impossible to reach buildings. With landmarks obliterated and even the tops of palm trees covered, simply finding where structures once stood was difficult. Firefighters, soldiers, and volunteers faced arduous conditions. The mud was so soft in some places that the rescuers sank up to their waists. Unable to use bulldozers because of the unstable soil, they dug with hand tools or just their hands. At times, they encountered boulders as big as houses that had washed down from the mountain along with the mud. Rescue crews were unable to dig to an elementary school where as many as 250 pupils were believed trapped. ''We're still hoping for a miracle," Southern Leyte Governor Rosette Lerias said early today. ''Maybe huge boulders rolled around or over the school, blocking mud and forming a sort of air pocket for those trapped." Hopes for the survival of some of the pupils had been raised yesterday when relatives reported receiving cellphone messages from a teacher trapped in the school. But the last message, which said four people remained alive, was received at 4 a.m. yesterday. Above where the school was thought to be, body bags were piled on the ground. Soldiers pounded stones on boulders and shouted in the hope that survivors in the school would signal back. They got no response. Water and mud continued to flow down from the mountain, sparking fears of another big slide, one that could bury the rescuers as they worked. A lack of electricity has forced rescuers to halt their operations each day at sunset. ''Yesterday, we concentrated digging where there were supposed to be survivors, but found only big rocks and mud," rescue worker Eugenio Abueva said today. ''We are starting off again this morning, hoping to find someone alive." ''Our work has been very slow because we have to do everything by hand," he said. ''Heavy equipment could not be brought to the area. We are using shovels and iron bars." Rescue crews found 43 bodies yesterday and two more today, bringing to 56 the number of dead recovered. Many of the bodies showed signs that they had been dragged along by the mudslide. Two of the people pulled alive from the mud died later. The United States has sent two military vessels to Leyte to aid the rescue effort and to provide medical assistance. The first US military unit, a 15-person assessment team, arrived in the area late yesterday and was headed to Guinsaugon. Many of the victims of the mudslide had evacuated Guinsaugon earlier because of the danger of a landslide from the heavy rains. But when the rains began to ease up, many returned home. ''Those residents have been told for many years that they lived on a danger zone," Lerias said. ''They got used to a little flooding after heavy rains. So Friday, they thought it was just going to be like that, but in a matter of seconds there was a huge wall of rocks, soil, and trees sliding down from the mountain." Authorities estimated that 350 villagers escaped the mudslide because they had not yet returned home. Adriano Fuego, director of the Office of Civil Defense for Leyte, noted that the area is geologically unstable and has a history of mudslides. In 1991, about 6,000 were killed on Leyte by floods and landslides after a major storm.
It give us food to eat, water to drink, trees as sheds and coolant, and almost everything we need. We built our houses in this world, ....and there are many, many more reasons for us to take good care and protect our HOME.
Ironically, many of us, tried to destroy this only home. The song goes, "saan ka tatakbo, kapag nawasak iisang mundo" should be a wake up call to everyone, that there's no other place, like what we have now.
In Genesis, God told man to "have dominion to all creatures, living and non-living, including mountains, seas, mammals, fish, and all creatures," but we tend to forget our responsibility as stweard of His creation. Instead we wantonly abused and raped the precious resources around us.
There is a need for us to work together before, it will be too late.
This blog is to document natural calamities caused by destruction of our environment. This is primarily an environmental advocacy as a vehicle to urge people from all walks of life, and from different parts of the country and the world, to protect, conserve and rehabilitate our endangered ecosystem.
