Talking toxic

REVOLUTIONARY GONE reactionary.
So what has happened to Oca Rodriguez? Asked me an unrepentant comrade, a cadre of the movement as we settled down for our cappuccino and espresso at Starbucks, SM City Clark.
The same thing that happened to us, I riposted, taking in the bourgeois atmosphere we were ensconced in.
Coffee is the proletariat’s beverage, the guerrilla’s very subsistence. Or have you forgotten your readings on the early struggles of the Movimiento 26 de Julio in the Sierra Maestra?
Yes, Che and Fidel were supposed to be coffee drinkers. So what’s that got to do with Mayor Oca?
It ain’t coffee – that’s but a digression naturally arising from the scent and scene in our surrounding. It’s this talk of toxic wastes Oca got himself entangled in.
So I read of Mayor Oca passing the buck to Angeles City for the toxic wastes San Fernando is being blamed by Macabebe Mayor Annette Balgan for choking the marine life in her town’s rivers.
Indeed, that is Oca acting the wily lawyer, dishing out an instant alibi without even bothering to read the case. Nothing of the revolutionary Ka Jasmin in Oca there. All the makings of a reactionary there, knee-jerk reactionary at that.
All the makings of a “most valuable point guard in basketball, if only for his magnificent passing skills,” as our editorial on the issue said of Mayor Oca.
Yes, magnificent passer easily blocked by another former comrade, Ed Pamintuan, who made Oca look stupidly ridiculous with his statement that industrial wastes could not have come from Angeles as Oca charged, for the simple reason that that city had no industrial plants.
Indeed, I still have in my mobile EdPam’s text (encrypted in formal language): “…In Angeles, Pare, we do not have industrial plants and our trash is mostly home garbage-based which we already checked substantially through the efforts of the Catholic Church headed by Bishop Ambo (David), Ang Dating Daan, the Metro Angeles City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, my barangay officials and the city government. All our bridges have been installed with 10-foot high steel fences. This is for your information, Pare.”Indeed, a supalpal of Oca there as your editorial put it…
It was “butata”…
Whichever means the same, Oca’s allegations slammed back on his face.
So what has Mayor Oca come to?
Could only be his being long embedded in, if not abed with, his city’s perfumed set. The sosyal trappings obliterating whatever remnants of social conscientization in him. So where’s the masa in Oca’s government?
Very strong words. Very dialectical, really...
Glad to see you still can recognize the interplay of contradictions in society.
To be fair though, Mayor Oca is not simply reactive but really pro-active in this issue of waste, toxic, industrial or whatever. Here’s San Fernando’s City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) chief Rowena Siron-Freeman’s statement published in the papers:
…Prior to putting the blame solely on the city government, statements must be supported by strong evidence from credible research or scientific studies. Otherwise, it is very unfair to make unfounded allegations…
…Local government officials should know that environmental problems, like those of solid waste floating on rivers, know no political or geographical boundaries. The problem faced by the Municipality of Macabebe is also faced by the City of San Fernando since these river systems are interconnected…
Again, truly said like a lawyer, asking for “strong evidence” based on “credible research.” The river stinks, the fish are decreasing, if not dying. Isn’t that enough proof of industrial wastes polluting the rivers?
Hold your horses. Freeman said the city government had already passed in 2008 yet its Environment Code which serves as “the legal framework for all environmental concerns in the city, including air and water quality and solid waste management.” Also, that the City Solid Waste Management Board is updating the 10-Year City Solid Waste Management Plan. All these accruing to Freeman’s word that” The city government affirms its continuous service to the people and upholds its commitment to protect the environment.”
Zhi laohu – paper tigers, that’s what Oca’s Environment Code and Solid Waste Management Plan are. Looking fearsome but actually weak and inutile. It’s not harmless steam that’s coming out of Pasudeco’s chimneys, it’s not treated water at those black stinking ponds of those pig and poultry farms in Barangay Lara. So what has Oca, with his Environment Code, done about that?
Indeed, the greatest violator not only of its own Environment Code but of the Clean Air and Water, of the Solid Waste Management laws is the city government itself. Need strong evidence and credible research? Go to the FVR Megadike, in Barangay Lara, behold the City of San Fernando Open Dumpsite, then gag and puke.
Yeah, last time I went down the dump to take photos, I had to have my clothes boiled before washing to get the stench out of them. And my car stank for three days, despite all the washing, vacuuming and air-freshening.
Yeah, right you are: the City of San Fernando is fast becoming a habitat of human pestilence.
That’s a very toxic thought, kasama.

Sickening

THE FOLLOWING is an opinion piece that appeared in the January 21, 2011 issue of another local newspaper. While it carried in its tagline the name of the author with her position of “Teacher III” in a public high school in a resettlement site, I refrained from identifying her and her school here, if only to save them from embarrassment.
The article is reprinted here as it appeared in that other paper. The bold, italicized sic enclosed in parenthesis I put in to indicate that grammatical lapses are as they stand.
xxxxxxx
THE HIDDEN TREASURE IN MATHEMATICS
“When hunger comes on, love flies out.” Money is one of the keys…and numbers can testify to that. How can a family survive without financial support? All that matters in order to let both ends meet is to work for themoney. Knowing why and how to calculate can not (sic) be learned in a minute. The treasure lies in Mathematics we just don’t have to understand it. We have to accept the fact that the concepts and principles in Mathematics will help you succeed. Every step of the way, time counts a lot. Start digging the treasure in Mathematics and time will come, you will find it within you.
MATHEMATICS and ENGLISH goes (sic) hand in hand.
Once a student ask (sic), “Is there really a need to learn all these Mathematical stuff? Like, if I will buy a candy, would I ask the vendor, if I will buy one and x+y is equal to N. What is the value of N?” Of course not! But the fact that you have to understand and comprehend the situation – and that can be learned in English is what it takes before calculating.
Learning the wh-Questions in English will help you understand what it means and solving mathematical problems would be easy. Analyzing the problems in Mathematics would mean “My favorite subject is Mathematics,”
MATHEMATICS and ENGLISH complements (sic) each other.
What if the problems in Mathematics is in Filipino? You say…”Ano ang dos dagdagan ng ugat ng kuatro kantos?” Whew! That will make our nose bleed. We have to learn the words, the terms, the meaning of tagalong (sic) words in English because it is better use (sic) in Math, they are easy and short. Problem solving given in Mathematics are situational and often encountered in real life. Like, we very fond “sale” (sic) in malls, discounted (sic) are given from (sic) the original price, and discount is a percentage of the original price. How can we find answers if we cannot understand the problem? Mathematics has something to do with English and vice versa.
xxxxx
WHEW, INDEED. Make that double Whew!
The “treasure of Mathematics” made so well hidden in fractured grammar and broken syntax that only the author can find it.
Mangling the English language has never been this bad, since Jimmy Santos and that comic character Barok made a career out of it.
For a “Teacher III” to be this grammatically and syntactically deficient takes the whole public education system to the pits.
And we still wonder why our school kids today can only manage pidgin English?
Hoy, DepEd, gising!

The siege

AN INTERNATIONAL incident that could have easily triggered a major irritation, maybe even estrangement, between the Philippines and South Korea.
That was the virtual siege laid out by the people of Neplum Inc. on the Royal Garden Golf and Country Club, a joint venture of local businessman Ruperto Cruz and South Korean Nam Suek.
Neplum, a company owned by the politically powerful Nepomuceno clan, by virtue of their claimed ownership of a portion of the road leading to the golf course walled in that claimed portion before dawn Monday, posted “No trespassing” signs in English and Korean, and deployed scores of uniformed private security guards – armed with truncheons and shotguns, as well as unarmed but uniformedly Neplum-shirted workers preventing all ingress and egress at the golf course.
Mediamen, this writer included, who went near the wall to take photos were shouted at by a matron: “Nepo property! No trespassing! Walang papasok!”
Somebody said the matron looked like one Sylvia Antonio, reportedly the Nepomuceno clan’s matriarch.
Neither golfers – averaging from 150 to 200 a day, this being the peak season – nor caddies, maintenance and administrative personnel could get in, but of course.
Worse, much worse, was the situation of those entrapped within the golf course, which, incidentally, is situated within an estate that has an operating hotel as well as residences settled in by South Korean nationals.
School-aged kids had to forego classes on Monday and the following day, barred as they were at the hastily constructed walls – there were two, by the Neplum guards.
Adults, in various stages of stress and tension, made frantic calls to the estate management and had to be reassured that everything was being done to break the siege.
The lawyer of the estate was by then in the process of seeking a temporary restraining order from the courts. A complaint at the barangay office was finally filed only late afternoon of Monday, the filer complaining that there was no one at the barangay hall to receive it earlier.
So went the impasse on the first day, January 17.
Early Tuesday, the height of the wall was raised, strands of barbed wires were put up at the road side. “Berlin Wall,” it was dubbed. Or, in keeping with the nationalities it walled on, “the 38th Parallel,” in reference to the heavily fortified demarcation line dividing the Korean peninsula.
An emergency – the mother of the Korean partner developed hypertension from the stress of being cooped inside the estate. After much pleading with the guards, she was allowed to go.
Another Korean elderly who also complained of high blood pressure and needed to buy her prescription medicine was disallowed to leave.
Soon Young-Tanhueco, married to a Filipino, phoned the Cruz office to report that food was running out in her household and she was out of cooking gas.
Food was brought to the wall for her but the guards disallowed entry.
Three staffers from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) who sought to intervene in behalf of the entrapped Korean elderly and children were told by the security guards to first seek approval from the Neplum office near Holy Mary Memorial Park.
It was way about 5 p.m. that the CHR finally escorted the elderly, Soon, four children and two male hotel guests out of the estate.
The image of the Koreans passing by the concrete wall then by the barbed wire fence evoked images of another era – Korean refugees crossing into the South during the war.
A distraught Soon broke into sobs and hugged her mother-in-law tightly.
“A short-haired white complexioned woman shouted at us: ‘This is war’,” Soon told media and others waiting outside the wall. “She said we could never get out, that the wall would stay until Cruz is dead.”
“In all my life, never was I frightened this much,” she furthered.
The high drama – of Korean nationals virtually hostaged and threatened, walled in, held virtually incommunicado, plus the spectacle of concrete walls rising overnight on a road, would have made one hell of a story the international media would have lapped up.
It would have approximated the frenzy that attended the Luneta bus hostage-taking tragedy.
A short call to the Associated Press where I used to work, to the BBC or CNN would have brought the Royal Garden Golf and Country Club siege to international focus.
But then, what would that have wrought to Angeles City and the whole country? Yet another black eye to the global image of the Filipino.
It was good that in this instance, patriotism took precedence over journalistic duty among the local media. So, an international incident aborted from happening there.
And yes, past 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, the walls came tumbling down – by virtue of a TRO and a writ of demolition issued by RTC Executive Judge Angelica Paras-Quiambao served by a Sheriff Sicat.

Cleaning up Porac

HOPE SPRINGS eternal. That truism finding greatest relevance at every start of a new year.
So 2011 may yet be the harbinger of good things to come for the Sta. Cruz, Manibaug-Paralaya and Cutcut communities on the very verge of despair over the pestilence of stench and flies that have enveloped them for the past 20 years.
Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda in no uncertain terms has enjoined Porac Mayor Condralito de la Cruz not to issue business permits to hog and poultry farms “while there are problems and complaints” being raised against them.
The governor emphasized that the local government – in close coordination with the Environment Management Bureau – ensured that pertinent environmental laws and regulations are being strictly followed by the farms before any permit is issued to them.
She even suggested to De la Cruz and Vice Mayor Dexter David to visit the farm of Mayor Romy Pecson in Magalang and learn how it managed to control the stench.
I don’t know if I carried the stink of Porac pigs or I looked anything like them but talks on the Porac pollution problem are never far whenever I meet the governor.
Yes, it was such talk last Monday at her office that gave rise to the media reports of her “strong suggestion” to the Porac LGUs to cease from issuing business permits to the farms.
We were into the subject with reporters Cha Cayabyab of Sun-Star Pampanga and this paper’s Joey Pavia when former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came.
“Ateng, this is in your district,” the governor told Congresswoman GMA, adumbrating – okay, outlining broadly – the Porac pollution problem as it poses a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of the communities and as it impacts most negatively on current and potential investments not only in the municipality but in nearby Angeles City. .
It surprised us most pleasantly when GMA said she has been consulting with people “in the know” – not necessarily those at the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources – on pollution control in hog and poultry farms.
“Larry Mendoza (former transportation and communications secretary) has a piggery right beside The Farm at San Benito (a medical and wellness resort in Batangas) and there is not the faintest odor (emanating from it). I asked him how he managed to control the pollution (attendant to pigs) and take us to a tour of his farm,’ GMA told us. “He said it would be more informative and fruitful (for our purposes) if we take a tour of the Monterey Farms. So I will call Ramon Ang.”
The governor and GMA taking on the Porac pollution problem enough to rekindle the dying embers of hope for a definitive, ff not an immediate, solution.
Porac Councilor Mike Tapang – the only local official with a clear and correct appreciation of the pollution problem, the only local official with enough commitment and political will to take it by the horns – could have never been more right in saying: “The intervention of the governor and GMA will make the big difference in solving the long-time problem on piggeries and poultries in Porac.”
Tapang has his own frustrations with the methodical indifference and measured inaction of the Porac LGU to the pestilence caused by the hog and poultry farms.
In October last year, Tapang filed Municipal Resolution No. 47-2010 creating a task force to monitor and inspect the piggeries and poultries in the town.
Mandated by of Executive Order No. 13-2010, dated Nov. 2, 2010, the Clean Air and Water Monitoring Task Force comprised 12 members from the town’s sanitation, health and engineering offices, staff of the EMB and representatives of the affected citizens and NGOs as the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement and Krusada Kontra Amoy.
The task force managed on December 9 to inspect Edward Farm in Sta. Cruz. Samplings were taken from the effluents coming out of the farm’s wastewater treatment facility even as the task force noted the non-operation of the farm’s bio-digester and the ambient smell of manure around the area.
The following day, only Tapang, PGKM chair Pert Cruz, environmentalist Sonny Dobles and the suffering residents found themselves at the meeting place for the day’s inspection. All representatives from the local government and the EMB failed to show up.
And that was the end of the task force.
Yes, the intervention of Governor Pineda and GMA may well indeed spell a big difference in finding the solution to Porac’s stench and flies.