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.