DRIP

In the not so distant future, Metro Manila could be heading towards a severe water crisis.

I recently had an interesting but sad conversation with some environmentalists who informed me that the present water supply in these areas are good for just a few more years.

The biggest culprit in this impending disaster are the illegal loggers whose activities have caused a widespread denudation of our forests and whose operations have remained unchecked through the years. Unless new sources of water are discovered, the Metro area will suffer. Most of the present sources, they said, are way below its normal water levels especially Angat dam which is already way down to its critical levels. This explains why even deep wells now have only murky waters or even mud due to the drying up of the water beds.

The worried environmentalists also said that continued indifference of government officials to this worsening problem is exasperating. It is almost a crime. They added that many of our bureaucrats themselves hold logging permits which they farm out to dummies, family and friends. Either this or some of them are in the payroll of big logging concessionaires.

The current drought can also be traced to the activities of these loggers, not to mention the dreaded El Nino. Drought is an even bigger problem than floods caused by denuded forests. Floods occur because no roots will hold rainwater which are preserved in natural pools and reservoirs from which the public water supply may be taken. As a result, rainwater simply wash into the sea.

Yet, despite the gravity of the problem, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is at the bottom of the cabinet listing when it comes to government priorities. Environment plans submitted by concerned private groups are ignored and get lost in the bureaucratic maze.

(Image from http://everystockphoto.com/)

DOCTORS IN THE PALACE

There are reports that a confidential list of illegal loggers is being "doctored" in Malacanang to remove the names of some government officials and other persons close to the Arroyo government. This could be the reason the list has not been released to the public.

DENR Secretary Lito Atienza could, for some time now, be between the devil and the deep blue sea, and perhaps was experiencing "heavy pressure" to sanitize the list. Doing so could affect his mayoralty candidacy when charges of coddling illegal loggers intensify.

National outrage for illegal logging is mounting, but still on a slow pace. Stop illegal logging? Puro pangako lang.

(Image from http://www.greenpeace.org/)

DESALINATION, ANYONE?

At the onslaught of typhoon Ondoy, floodwaters were extremely everywhere in several hard-hit places. No high ground was assured of safety as the water levels were rising rapidly. But the irony of it all was that there was also no safe drinking water around. For this reason, perhaps the government's technical advisers would consider desalination as a solution to a serious (drinking) water shortage, especially in times of calamity.

This process, the removal of salt from sea water, is practiced routinely in many countries like Israel, which has turned many deserts into lush fruit and vegetable farms. Distillation is the most widely-used desalination process today. A simple form of distillation apparatus is used in countries with salt water and intense sunlight - like the Philippines. Salt water is placed under a transparent cover and the sun's rays partially vaporize the water. The water vapor is caught in the transparent cover and, when it condenses into liquid form, water flows into a collectiong through. Other processes make use of the fact that when salt water is frozen, the ice crystals contain no salt. There are already proposals for large-scale nuclear desalination which our government can make inquiries. But other more affordable desalination processes include freezing, reverse osmosis, ionic processes, electrodialysis and techniques that change the physical and chemical properties of salt water.

With the hundreds of millions of pesos used by the water agancies in the country, how come no government expert has been assigned to look into these desalination programs? Preliminary inquiries could be made with embassies of countries which utilize successful desalination projects, and perhaps even our experts can be sent abroad to look for the most suited and economical apparatus which should be immediately purchased and used back here. This is one expense that the public will surely welcome.

But first, these officials should be warned against thinking first of commissions and overpricing, which may sabotage their missions.

(Image from http://www.enn.com/)

LITO ATIENZA: PAMBANSANG BULAKBULERO O PAMBANSANG LINTA?

For a change, I'd like to see Manny Pacquiao knock all of Lito Atienza's teeth off. Imagine, this is one public servant who would rather watch Manny's fight live in Las Vegas than to attend to a very important Senate budget hearing of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Atienza went on to say that his critics "have weak family values and do not understand the need to support" the country's national treasure. Vintage verbal diarrhea once again from a man who has more wrong-doings in his public career than the total number of flowers on his Polynesian shirt. No wonder, a department like the DENR can't seem to get its programs on high gear, that's because it now has a secretary who would rather miss an important budget hearing and watch his idol Pacquiao box. Talk about priorities Mr. Secretary. I think you're better off being Manny's towel-boy. But you would surely undignify all the towel-boys of the boxing world. What a shame, bulakbol again, huh? For once, we'd like Manny to knock the Polynesian shirt out of your body too! Teeth included.

(Image from http://philonline.com/)

MISSING THE MEHAN

Shortly after I had left the Office of the Press Secretary under Secretary Rod Reyes to return to the private sector, I received a personal invitation from then Congressman Heherson 'Sonny' Alvarez to join him at the DENR after himself having been invited by 'newly-installed' President Gloria Arroyo to join her cabinet as Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). There, I was appointed by Sonny to run the DENR's Public Affairs Office (PAO) and work hand in hand with career government employees numbering around 60 in that department alone. This was quite a positive challenge for me, having worked with a much smaller staff at the OPS. After some time, Secretary Alvarez faced a tough battle with his opponents during the hearings of the powerful Senate Committee on Appointments because he had allegedly stepped on big toes both in the private sector and in government. In one such occasion as in several others, the department was on a head-on collision with then Manila Mayor Lito Atienza who had positioned himself to tear down the historical Mehan Garden, probably a favorite 'pasyalan' of our grandparents during their time. The purpose for this was to give way for the proposed (and approved) construction of a multi-level parking complex and to give way for the construction of a new home for the City Colleges of Manila (CCM). Of course, this immediately confirmed reports that Mayor Atienza was more concerned with the 'economic aspect' of the city rather than its historical character by preserving its parks and monuments. One also remembers how the equally old art-deco Jai-Alai building on Taft Avenue was torn down unremorsefully in the name of 'urban development.' Atienza was an overnight enemy of environmentalists and conservationists. This after repeated calls by no less that the National Historical Institute (NHI) to preserve important historical landmarks in our country - Atienza's Manila included. But as expected, all such appeals fell on the latter's coin-clogged ears. Well, now that the table is turned, and he now heads the very same department he once ignored and ridiculed, I wonder what he feels now that a huge chunk of the DENR's programs are geared towards 'green projects' and clamp down on too much urbanization of an already urban environment such as Manic Manila, and preserve whatever historical landmarks there are in existence? Trees aren't anymore going to grow on concrete. The murdered centuries-old trees on the murdered memories-filled Mehan Garden are gone forever. There we only now see smoke-emitting jeepneys and pedicabs, buses and taxicabs. Thanks to Lito Atienza's cross-eyed (as in doble kita) vision of Manila, a city that was better off without him. A 'friend of the environment' who acts just like its enemy.

(Image from http://tornandfrayed.typepad.com/)

A BROWN PASIG AND A POLYNESIAN SHIRT

I think we ought to already have a separate and independent Department of Conservation or an Environmental Protection Agency just like the powerful EPA in the US, whose main task is to identify and punish the enemies of the environment and polluters like the factories by the Pasig, unlike the present DENR whose chief executive does a better job posing as a leech right next to a boxing champ, and a participant in the "abduction" of a whistle-blower at the airport. Thanks to the so-called "environment watchdogs," we now have a Brown Pasig as Europe has its Blue Danube and China its Yellow River.

(Image from http://www.daylife.com/)

MIKE DEFENSOR BAGS THE NICKEL IN BEIJING!

Congats sa ating mga athletes (foot) Gloria Arroyo and Mike Defensor! 'Di pa man tayo makakuha ng Gold sa Beijing Olympics, nasungkit naman nila ang NICKEL sa pamamagitan ng isang Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Manila and Beijing for a Nickel mining contract. GMA flew to Beijing the other day to witness the signing of this MOU, and of course to watch the Olympics. Maging mala ZTE na naman kaya ito? With Gloria and Mike Defensor involved, something fishy sure is in the offing again.

(Image from http://pcij.org/)

LITO ATIENZA AND SONS WILL STEAL THE SHOW AGAIN FROM MANNY PACQUIAO

So, Manny Pacquiao wins the WBC lightweight division crown by knocking down David Diaz. Ho-hum. Well, okay so I should receive it as good news and jump for joy. The bad news is that we're all going to be seeing once again ex-Bayanihan dancer DENR Secretary Lito Atienza, son Ali Atienza and son-in-law Miles Roces as they attempt at earning some 'pogi points' squeezing their way to be right beside Pacquiao for all the country to see when he returns to Manila for a hero's welcome on July 4. It's so sickening and as always, a cheap way for the Atienza's to gain media mileage. For once, can we please see Pacquiao this time WITHOUT Lito Atienza and his boys next to him?! Atienza should just improve on his job as Secretary of the Environment. Plus, it really is 'kabaduyan' for him to be wearing those Polynesian shirts. He cheapens the value of those beautiful shirts, that's why we only see a few guys wearing them in public. They simply wouldn't want to be compared with Atienza. So please to you organizers of the welcome parade for Pacquiao, don't you dare include Lito Atienza, Ali Atienza and Miles Roces once again. 'Di pa ba kayo nagsasawa sa makakapal nilang pagmumukha?

(Image form http://manilastandardtoday.com/)

SPLAT LI'S

Beijing Ministry of Tourism advertisement: "Gloup touls to Splat Li's available. Fo mo infomation, contact Philippine Toulism Secletaly Ace Dulano, plus bonus English Ploficiency lessons by Secletaly Selgio Apostol."

(Image from http://www.cnn.com/)

PRESIDENTIAL PREDICAMENT: NEW CLEAR DAYS OR NUCLEAR DAYS?

WAKING UP WHITEY. Thirty-two years after construction began on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), Filipino taxpayers for the longest time have paid $155,000 a day on interests alone on a facility that has never produced a single watt of power. The BNPP was a promising solution by former President Ferdinand Marcos to the energy crisis that plagued us in the 1970s. And now, with the skyrocketing prices of oil, thoughts on the BNPP hound us again. It was then when the oil embargo had imposed a hevy burden on the economy, and Marcos' vision for our country saw nuclear power as the path toward meeting the country's future energy requirements and thus, lessening the country's dependence on foreign oil. Sounds familiar? Construction commenced in 1976 and finished in 1984 at a cost of $2.3 billion. However, the plant located 97 kilometers north of Manila had been the center of controversy from day one of its birth. When Marcos was overthrown in a popular revolt in 1986, a team of international inspectors visited the facility and declared it "unsafe and inoperable," claiming it had been built near major earthquake fault lines and near Mount Pinatubo, which at that time was as dormant as a satiated snake. And so, the first post-Marcos government of Corazon Aquino sealed the nuclear plant's fate for good when it banned the use of nuclear power, enshrining it even one step further in the Philippine Constitution. Debt repayment to the plant was the country's single biggest obligation. And although the plant has been in the market for takers for some decades now, it is unlikely for it to be sold with a reactor dating back to the 70s. But a South Korean company (them again??) once upon a time expressed interest in taking over the BNPP to develop it for commercial purposes - to put up an English-Korean school, a Korean grocery or a spa nearby perhaps? But again, a provision in our constitution simply ruled this out. The plant could be converted to utilize other kinds of fuel, and successive governments have looked at ways of converting it into oil, coal or gas-fired power stations. To convert the existing plant stands as an economic disadvantage. Certain sectors of society led by President Arroyo are perhaps toying on the idea of the Philippines going nuclear, or converting the plant into a fossil fuel power station, but past studies have shown that converting it is just too costly for the government. They'd rather use it somewhere else or pocket it, I suppose. Much of the technology infused into the plant was in the early 70s, but modified following the Three-Mile Island accident in the US in 1979. The plant itself is still being maintained despite never having been commissioned. Only commissions of the other kind materialized. For now, it could well be just another tourist attraction - a white elephant. But depending on one's opinion on the facility, it could solve our energy problems with Meralco and GSIS fighting it out for energy supremacy. Other than that, it could very well be the next Chernobyl, and depending on the government and its insatiable lust to hang on to power, for President Arroyo, these days may be new clear days for her, or nuclear days for us.

(Image from http://www.energy-daily.com/)

SERVES YOU RIGHT!

Some time ago at a pro-GMA rally, Secretary Lito Atienza made an emotional appeal to the crowd saying: "Please return the side-view mirrors of my Expedition!"

(Image from http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/)