Confronting Climate Change: Philippines

Weather these days is becoming worrisome.

Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) bearing down on our Philippines

The typhoons our nation must yearly contend against are becoming unpredictable in number as well as fiercer in intensity. Indeed, we have a new classification per PAGASA for "super typhoon".

Furthermore, our typhoon season seems to be no longer predictably contained in the wet season. As such, seasonal monsoon winds exacerbate a number of these unseasonal storms blowing in from the pacific causing our communities more grief. (I've never heard of those red, orange, and yellow rainfall warning growing up and we didn't have any typhoons at all past November.)

Why is "our weather" becoming worrisome?

Weather is local. 

I say it is local because its effects are local. It is worrisome to us only because it is local. Ask yourself where you were when Yolanda or Ondoy made landfall and you will see: Weather is local.

Those who think much about weather are usually those who are much affected by its effects. 

The very immediacy of weather produces an urgency. 

And this urgency we can feel because the Philippines along with many island nations in the Pacific are at the front line of climate change in the sense that we are the ones who must more or less directly contend against its local effects... as we have with Yolanda and Ondoy.

What is the connection? I want us empowered to handle the local effect of climate change but for now let us look past Yoldanda and Ondoy...

Let us look past weather when we worry about climate for weather is already a consequence of climate and it is climate that is driving the changes in our weather.

What is climate?

Climate is more predictable than weather. These are systems larger and more powerfully integrated to forces and motions that arise from the nature and circumstance of our planet.

One may Google more specific information about climate but for the purpose of this article allow this writer to emphasize this fact: Climate is not local.

Climate is global.

We hear about global warming these days. We hear arguments against it as well as in support of it. We hear of climate summits wherein the leaders of our nations seek to address it. We hear of its advocacy. We hear its many and varied voices.

How come for many of us local Pinoys, it seems difficult to really empower ourselves about any of the issues associated with climate change. Even those of us who are convinced that something has gone awfully wrong with something up in the sky there somewhere find it hard to do anything with that sense of the urgency that is nagging at our convictions. So we hold on to our stories and our beliefs... and wait...

And wait...

For many of us now, it is becoming painful to wait... wait for the next supertyphoon? 

Wait and not know.

You see, the problem (as I see it) is that unlike weather, climate is global.

Many of us really do not do much to affect the climate of the planet even if we wanted to. We Filipinos as a people have small climate footprints. Our Philippine Republic in this same regard do not rank among Countries we may say are primary contributors to either the problem or the solution.

Most of the issues surrounding climate change remain distant to many of us. 

The reality of climate change seem so disjointed from our common experience as a nation that the sense of urgency that should be building up in the spirit of our Republic due to such unprecedented weather phenomenon as Yolanda and Ondoy seem itself unsure.

Actions that truly empower us in this regard seem few and far between.

This is both good and bad.

GOOD: Because we have not yet committed the worst of environmental crimes. The kinds of pollution we ordinarily deal with as a nation are not (yet) highly toxic. Our present day mistakes - if we get a grip - are (still) not costly to fix.

The kinds of pollution we Filipinos endure everyday tainting our land, air, and water are usually brought about by ineffective garbage disposal in our communities oftentimes by our communities themselves.

BAD: Because we, as Filipinos, seem not yet fully aware of the environmental and ecological dimensions innate to our citizenship.

And so in retrospect, we think to ourselves sometimes at the wake of those unseasonal storms: If only we as citizens (or as a nation) have done this or done that so as to enable ourselves to become more involved and more informed about these things...

The problem is, unlike climate, weather is local.

When weather happens, it is already a consequence of climate. 

So we feel helpless. We begin to hate the player not the game. I want us to be able to hate the game and be an effective player in the game (so to speak).

Dealing with climate change does not have to be an exercise in helplessness.

Climate is global. Weather is local. 

The effects of climate change is worrisome because weather is becoming worrisome. We may not have the reach nor the influence to largely affect climate. But we can advocate matters that deal with and help prepare the communities of our nation for the effects of climate change. We can empower their thought by explaining how weather is only a consequence of climate change that they may not feel pitted against something beyond the grasp of their understanding. That the right response is to be prepared.  

Let us allow our LGUs the comfort of being able to believe (by each their own measures) they are doing their best... because they are.

Weather and preparedness are two key words that go hand in hand. As regards weather, preparedness is not only the right thing to do... it is the most we can do. And in this, we can do much.

As regards climate change, we must deal with it decisively as well... by fully reviving in our citizenship, its environmental and ecological dimensions. (Meditate on the 3rd Rupture: Man - Creation.)

The green in our citizenship is gold to our nationhood. 

The good news I think is this revival taking place at the heart of our civics is already happening... Sagip-Ilog, Run for Pasig River, Tree Plantings, Green energies, citizens disposing their garbage responsibly... 

Think about it, my brother and sister Filipinos.

When we think about climate, apart from the weather, let us in our minds think - climate and pollution are the two key words that go together.

For it is pollution that is driving the changes in climate, pollution of a kind we are NOT YET capable of and, if we are a wise people, should not think of being and therefore, developing our capacities in that way... learning from the experiences of our one family of nations.

We can be wiser than the game by playing nature fair... and much shall it profit our peace.

Love of nature after all is a timeless Filipino trait.
---<--@

Say Peace to the River...

Imagine, if you will, a river that flows through your own heart - is it a nurturing river with waters refreshing to your soul? or is it a polluted river with waters stinking up your spirit?

Imagine all our rivers this way, flowing out in time from our hearts of life and living community - are we at peace with these waters that flow or not?

Any river that flows through the life of any of our community, if it doesn't flow through our hearts does not (and will not) answer to our voice.

How then do we say peace to our rivers, to our skies, and to our seas?

Darling Starshine -

A river flows out into the sea, into heaven, and around again - through you and through me.

How do you say peace to a river without setting it free?

And how do you set a river free without letting its waters come full circle...

from the mountains, through the earth, and to the salty sea - where every river ascends again - invisibly - into the heavens - through the clouds...

...and back again from above - from love to love - through you and through me?

How can you say peace to a river if you do not let it run through thy heart...

Can anything be set free without love?

Can any river long endure being chained? It will either go home to heaven, or exact a terrible revenge upon the human communities of our earth.

How do you say peace to a river?
---<--@

Hope Taking Wing

Personal reflection: The pollutants in our rivers are mostly sewage and non-industrial waste. This means, our rivers are mostly in good shape. We do not have to deal with toxic and radioactive pollutants and their expensive clean up costs. All it shall take is OWNERSHIP of our natural bodies of water and waterways.

If we take care of our rivers in this present time and learn to say peace to them - when we become a more mechanized and industrialized Republic, we will grow in a way that is friendly to the vital living ecology that surrounds and sustains our natural human habitat. We will become a more happier people.

20110711

Conservation and Energy Independence

I want us to be a forward-thinking nation!

Absolutely speaking, how we practice conservation effectively as a people will affect our energy future.

To what extent we exercise a common ownership of our natural environment as individuals NOW will determine our long-term energy independence as a nation.

Our goal is to go green by 2045.

How we dispose of garbage, how we buy our food, how we go to work, how we treat the well-being of animals and plants, etc. - all these things are directly related to the way we think about conservation.

And the way in which we understand conservation collectively will affect our national policy-making in our Republic with regards to our long-term energy independence as a nation.

It's a free Country so let us be prudent with the way in which we use our liberty.

With regards to energy, our national mantra shall be - "everything is related to everything."

And with regards to conservation, at this late hour, let us also permanently attach the adjective "wholesale".

Because if we do not go all the way today - it will become progressively more and more difficult for us as a nation to achieve a measure of energy independence.

Conservation in the context of the paradigm shift (from War to Peace) in our national thinking becomes a necessary element of our national strategy.

My fellow Filipino compatriots, energy independence may sound highly ambitious but it is also highly necessary. And it is just as well that we think about these things sooner than later.

Later might be one moment too late.

---<--@

Spratly and the Common Defense

The Spratly issue is contentious.

We are getting into the thick of it. But let us not get the notion - here and now - that this dispute is, in any way or form, the primary motivation that informs and impels our will of common defense for this one Republic of ours.

We are to continually develop our defense capabilities (on our own as well as in coalition with our allies) at present out of a necessary love of God and Country as a matter of course.

For we are no longer part of the last great age of War, my honorable compatriots - its paradigm is past. We should learn to discard also the thinking that the defense exists because of a threat that compels it to exist as in the last great age of War.

The defense exists and have always existed whether there is a threat or not.

We are not defending out of a need to shield ourselves from other Countries. We are defending now because building up an effective defense is an integral part of our undertaking of Country and this defense shall be informed by the depth of our belongings to each other and nothing else.

We will defend what we love.

My noble Filipino brothers and sisters of the Promise, do not overextend yourselves as regards to the Spratly issue. Every nation here in our world is broken, each to a degree, and all are War-weary. All present indications are that, if we should exercise patient as well as prudent understanding with all parties involved, this issue shall be resolved not by force of arms, but by the overarching requirements of these present times - this greater season of Peace.

Therefore, I am still holding out for an equitable solution to the dispute in question - a solution that will do adequate justice to the sovereign right of all claimants.

I say "adequate" because I recognize that in such a dispute, one who is skillful in diplomacy must draw a middle course between two evils.

In the meantime, let us focus most of our national energies into filling out what is necessary in our nation to make our one Republic more and more ready to face the challenges of this new age.

We must become aware also that our region belongs to a greater (continental) belonging and that this nascent continental belonging too will flounder divided against itself.

In the thick of this dispute therefore, let us try to place ourselves within our own belongings in Asia to which we are all part that we may at least take notice of the calm of a greater good that exists as clear skies above the storm which is (in this case) this Spratly dispute.

---<--@

Think about it -

It is not Man's nature to wage war, it is War's nature to wage war.

If we bandy about with evil words one to another and in our nations do the same, if we are indecent and respect not the dignity of other individuals, let alone nations, we are sowing the seeds of new conflicts.

But if we speak like Men should speak and not debase our humanity into the level of brutes, all men - rational men and not evil men who have already slept in their souls with War - listen to reason and would try to avoid harming themselves or others like themselves.

Life as a whole is not inimical to itself but sadly, my brothers and sisters of the Promise, we live in an everyday world of contradictions; of lies, half-truths and malice - the veritable atmosphere of hell.

We can ill afford to conform to it and hope to remain human.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

Others Like Yourself

20100928

Remembering Typhoon Ondoy

Of the three elements of Country, only the Nation exists for itself. Both the Responsible State and the Common Market exists for the Nation.

Growing up here in the Philippines, I am used to the experience of typhoons. There is never a year when we are without one. It never used to worry me, these typhoons, because typhoons were part of the experience of being Filipino.

In some quite significant way, our culture has become well adapted to the seemingly perennial cycle of the seasons here in the tropics.

For hundreds, if not thousands of years, our generations have come to collectively experience what it takes to successfully forge a living in these islands. Because of all of this, as a nation, we have come to quiet terms with the peculiarities of our native land, sea and sky, along with all its particular realities, good as well as bad. Our social consciousness as a people have for a long time learned to accept the experience of it all as part and parcel of the fabric of Filipino life.

This was why Typhoon Ondoy (International Codename: Ketsana) was so different.

We remember Ondoy a year later in the way we do because, amidst its tragedy, it presents to the Filipino psyche something new that it must now grapple against: Our climate is changing.

After Ondoy struck in late September of last year, the Country was hit with four other typhoons (Pepeng, et. al.) all in the month of October. But we remember Ondoy all too well because of the hurt and the fear.

We know all too well that the tragedy of Ondoy was only exacerbated by deficiencies within the institution of the Responsible State, deficiencies which were to a large extent fed by so much of the evils which I believe our present government led by PNoy is trying to combat and reverse.

How we shall remember Ondoy, its heroes and its victims, in the years to come after this one shall depend completely upon how well we shall strive to stand firmly united as one Republic undertaking and as a nation distinct, decisively understand from all of this what needs to be done to preserve the common good and to proceed from it.

Like the mythical hydra, the evils of these present times stand adamantly against us to prevent us from treading the straight path. Our government can really only do so much in our behalf and at our own good behest.

If we are to successfully grapple with these challenges placed by God before our chosen road, my fellow Filipino compatriots, in order to gain from Him and from all of heaven the national success, we must know that it is we, the people, who have the ability strike it at the very heart.

Towards this end, I am putting all of my trust in our ability to succeed - for God and Country - together this time.

Some Lessons Learned:

Conservation, because of what we are faced with, must be done wholesale. We will not stand to benefit from lukewarm halves and disparate pieces: It will only delay tragedy, not prevent it.

Preservation must be meaningfully inspired by its highest and therefore, noblest Cause - that of Sacred Life which is all of life, plant and animal, above all human life.

Disaster Preparedness and Public Safety, in order for these to become proactive, must evolve to become a matter of civic concern in this nation and an ordinary exercise of civic duty.

Integral Public Education is essential in this regard (Refer to SONA 2010 highlight #5: the re-dedication of our current educational system to the service of our youth in particular and the nation in general in the context of 21st century requirements).

All of these this will work to further enable in our people a spirit of volunteerism and inculcate in our youth, a greater and more abiding sense of national community.

State Emergency Services thus devolved into a government (LGU) responsibility must maintain, on behalf of the common Filipino citizenry, current, centralized, and adequate standards of training (including competitive remuneration packages) and technology necessary to effectively form the core of any incident response in this particular regard.

---<--@

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas! God bless us all.

About that Flag incident at the US-ASEAN summit in New York: These things happen.

It happened once while I was in Australia that an Australian Prime Minister was welcomed by a host State with a New Zealand Flag.

It was clearly a mistake and is no big deal at all: Case Closed.

Welcome back, PNoy and delegation!