Cordillera Day Tree Planting at Mt. Cabuyao

We were expecting a typhoon (and I'm supposed to stand-by for disaster-rescue as part of the LGU, if ever) but still,  I reminded Dan, Aby and some friends early in the morning about what we will be doing this Cordillera Day- We will be planting trees!  

From La Trinidad, we made it to the Green Valley Junction and rode a Sto. Tomas-bound Jeepney  up to the turning point, had some coffee at a nearby store, and went walking up to the police station. After which, we rented a taxi to Kabuyao Elementary School. We're not yet late (to our surprise) so we decided to look around. This majestic view near their bathroom is truly unexpected:
There were many participants which include the organizers (Cordillera Conservation Trust), the PNP-Cordillera, the CENRO staff, a group of Mountain-trekkers, a Muslim Organization, Media People, CS/NGOs, and concerned citizens like us :) 

 After some few reminders from the organizer's Director, Mr. JP Alipio, we proceeded to the destroyed area in an attempt to restore/reforest it. ( Picture below are the famous electric fans of Sto. Tomas which are responsible for Baguio City's cool climate :) hehe )

When we got there, everyone realized that the damage is not really exaggerated. Its true; there were kilometers and kilometers of excavations where trees (more than thousands of trees, not just 761) were felled, and which caused boulders of rock to rage on the streams below. One does not need to be an environmentalist to be alarmed and be enraged. We are now witnesses to the atrocities of a Lawyer-Lawmaker-Lawbreaker who's greed must have eaten his soul.

We planted trees in the middle of the road in hopes of reforesting it.We realized that this would give us more stake or ownership of the forest or the reservation, and ultimately teach us to protect it. 

(Pic Below shows a gentleman from Sudan who is helping 'us' save 

the forest which gives us water)

(Hoping for resurrection!)

Dan (photograper), Aby, and I (all struggling bloggers except for Dan), decided to explore the reservation after the activity. We decided to go down and follow the river!

We got lost! (but that's another story). What's important is that we emerged from a 6 hour walk/climb/trek and found the main road. This day was well spent! (Baguio view from Mt. Cabuyao)

"Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises." - Pedro Calderon de la Barca

(All pictures used courtesy of blogger/writer, Dan Feliciano..:)

Wasted World

WASTED WORLD (by: Valred Olsim, 2009)

So much has changed since the 18th century industrial revolution; at the beginning of it, few could imagine humans flying, communicating with people on the other side of the globe instantaneously, the explosion of modern inventions, and the evolution of information technology – indeed, we have moved into a faster era, a faster world: The world of the instant. Yet, despite this increase of available information, there were remarkably few insights – we are constantly faced with the inquiry of “what now?”

Each second, a portion of our world is carved away from the little space where we can freely roam. The philosophy of private property which has enabled us to own and keep owning parts of this earth sprouted from a culture that we invented to secure an important necessity: Shelter. Yet, this culture, together with the idea that our existence is far greater than the lives of any other living organisms on the face of the earth, created a system of enterprise that compromises the subsistence of our natural resources; we burn forests for a space to construct our houses, we cut trees for it, we mine minerals, and we reconstruct our very own natural habitat such that, we become more like gods with the power to build and destroy.

As if we had never done enough damage to our mother earth, we have fashioned a false illusion of “wants” that would keep us working from the little time that we have in our lives. We dream of bigger houses, finer clothes, more shiny stones, just to live the arrogant and luxurious lives of those who we call 'the rich and the famous'. We attempt to fill up an insatiable urge, and we remain empty-- no contentment, no happiness. Consequently, we have reached the point of squeezing our resources to satisfy the needs and "wants" of our population, we have reached a turning point of rapid consumption and exploitation of these gifts – we continue to expand our numbers; more buildings, more cars, more factories, more products to consume, more profit to the global economy and, more wastes. The issue is not just about overpopulation, capitalization, industrialization and global-warming, it has something to do more of the responsibility that we have forgotten as caretakers of the world. That even in these modern times, we are no different from our hunter – gatherer ancestors; we will always depend on the fruits of the earth and the gifts of our environment.

With all these readily available facts, we blind ourselves to the vanity and pleasures of modern day life, unnoticing the reality that the world has evidently grown older, showing signs of illness every time; the year-to-year fall of the water level, climate change, natural disasters like floods and mudslides, food shortages and waste problems. We refuse to listen to these voices, our earth’s sobs, perhaps of being tormented…we never gave these problems a single thought. That, unless we take action to redesign our ways to manage our economic system and stop the pressure to our environment; unless we sacrifice the comforts of using plastic bags, unless we stop dreaming of having many cars, unless we do the simplest things to reverse our culture of vanity and consumerism, we will ultimately destroy the natural fabric that underpins life itself – our planet.

It has been centuries since literature had discussed about a Utopia – a perfect and ideal society of the future. Surprisingly, today’s art, literature, and futuristic movies depict a future of global destruction, chaos and anarchy – the end of the world? Is it possible that the civilization of humans had also mapped its destruction? Maybe. There will be no plane crash without the invention of airplanes, no complicated diseases had we not poisoned our air with chemicals and smoke, no wastes without the system of production which we had created.

Nature always finds ways to reckon with human’s arrogance. There is an end to everything whether it is great or small; like the birth and death of a star, or the life cycle of a butterfly. There is such a thing called doom’s day; when our planet will fail us like how we fail it - when we eventually deplete its resources and die. We may not live long enough to witness it, but maybe our sons and daughters would. It does not take a complicated deduction to measure its reality; there is an impending doom and we cannot stop it…we can only postpone it.

(Although I wrote this about 7 or 8 years ago, it is surprisingly still right on spot for the environmental issues that we have today. What  changed anyway? Still, I hope to make this an entry to PIA-CAR's social media campaign on environment..and yes, hope..:)