Where ‘gods’ choke on plastic bags and garbage - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

NEW DELHI, India – Do you think we’ve got garbage problems? In India, garbage generates even more controversy. Not just because there’s so much detritus in a nation of about one billion people (12 million in Delhi alone) – but because plastic bags thrown into the trash are killing of some of India’s gods!

To clarify: It was in India where the English language got that graphic term, "sacred cow." The Brits who ruled this immense subcontinent (including what are now Pakistan and Bangladesh) for two centuries were impressed to find that in the Hindu pantheon of over 300 gods and goddesses were not just exotic deities like the god Vishnu (the "Preserver"), or his various incarnations like Brahma (who sits on a lotus attached to Vishnu’s navel), Rama (the epitome of virtue), Krishna, the most "human" and beloved as the embodiment of love (he flirted with the cowherd girls) or Shiva from whose matted looks the holy river Ganges flows (and dances the ritual of destruction and creation), or the holy linggam (the erect "penis" worshipped as a source of life in many temples), and other avatars.

The goddesses who are their consorts are no less ubiquitous: Lakshmi, goddess of wealth (her vahana – i.e. vehicle – is an owl); Saraswati, goddess of learning and music (consort of Brahma, whose vehicle is a swan), Parvati (gentle daughter of mountains, worshipped by the Devi cult), or Durga in her more militant form, pictured always on a tiger, waving a fierce arsenal of weapons in her eight arms, from the sharp trishul (trident) to maces, swords, and bow & arrows, forever fighting Evil, or, in her most dreaded persona, the goddess Kali wearing a garland of skulls, rampaging through creation, stamping on Evil prostrate under her feet, the patroness of warrior Rajput clans who live by the sword or the ancient thuggee, a cult of assassins who revere her death-dealing qualities.

Those formidable goddesses are not to be encountered on a dark night, I’ll wager.

A favorite god is Ganesha, the one with the elephant head, who brings good luck and is a remover of obstacles. Unfortunately or fortunately, as the case may be, each deity has a vahana (vehicle) which partakes of the sacredness of each who rides them. Thus, Ganesha’s "vehicle", the rat, is sacred and should not be killed: alas, rats eat up much of the grain stored in godowns and barns, depriving humans of their bare-bones sustenance. Another sacrosanct vehicle of Vishnu is the winged and beaked man-like Garuda, which (thanks to millennium-old Indian influence) is a widely-revered symbol in Thailand and Indonesia. Now, there’s Hanuman, the monkey god who helped Lord Rama rescue his queen Sita from the ravenous demon king Ravenna (hero of so many Ramayana epics and dances).

The most-spotted sacred vehicle is the cow. This is because Nandi the bull is Lord Shiva’s vehicle, on his travels through the cosmos. India’s "sacred cows", on the other hand, are not soaring through the cosmos but all over the streets, and rummaging for food in the garbage. They cannot be killed by devout Hindus and roam free – to starve in many places. (The devotion to them reached such a stage in earlier Indian life that shopkeepers, in the old days, exhibited shoes and other leather goods claiming they were fashioned of ahimsa leather. This meant kuno that the sacred cows who supplied the leather were not slaughtered in abbatoirs but died of natural causes or "committed suicide.")

These days, even if not so-minded, cows commit suicide by eating plastic bags strewn in the garbage and choking to death on them!

Perhaps this is one reason a chief minister, Mrs. Sheila Dikshit (Yep, that’s her enchanting name), has been conducting a campaign to "Say No to Plastic." There are large signs proclaiming this all over Delhi and its environs. However, shopkeepers have not been cooperating. They’re still packing their wares in plastic bags or polyethelene when they hand over their goods to customers. "Paper bags are always out of stock," complained some stall owners. Nonetheless, you see delivery men on bicycles delivering stacks of paper bags to stalls in Chandni Chowk, for instance, made of what appear like pages torn from books and publications. For the sake of cooperating with Mrs. Dikshit, market stall owners in Janpath must be savaging the literary heritage of the nation. The chairman of the Janpath Market Association, Mr. Madan, vowed to spare no effort to convert his members from "poly" to paper.

Save the cows! That’s my motto, too. Can’t have gods choking on plastic, if you’re not able to advance the argument that plastic is non-biodegradable.

* * *

Back home in smiling, happy Philippines, where the problem is not "mad cow disease" (another fear expressed lately here in India), but mad politicians diseased by ambition and acquisitiveness, those "coup jitters" aroused by the speculation that Erap is "buying" one against GMA should be the least of our worries.

What should concern us is that many "appointees" to important posts are slipping through, without being vetted and approved by GMA’s much-touted "Search Committee" headed by the very capable former Civil Service Commission Chairperson Pat Sto. Tomas.

The public relations baloney that these officials were recommended by the Search Committee is being peddled in order to give the impression that only "the best and the brightest" are being recruited by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s reformist government. C’mon Pat. Tell us: Were former Department of Public Works & Highways Secretary Fiorello Estuar and Metro Bank Vice President Chito Sobrepeña (a former Malacañang official during the past Cory Aquino dispensation) really recommended by your Search Committee?

Among the appointees, I’ve heard, who did not "pass" through the Committee’s inspection – supposed to be on the basis of proven competence, experience and reputation for integrity – were DPWH Secretary Datumanong, a congressman from Mindanao who is a lawyer not an engineer or builder; and another Mindanao congressman, DOTC Secretary Pantaleon "Bobot" Alvarez. Former Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Lisandro "Boy" Abadia, at least, has been dropped (for the moment?) from his nomination of National Security Adviser, owing to unfinished "business" in connection with the retired officers’ RSBS fund scandal. Gee whiz. Are we going to have a government of fastbreaks, not mature selection? Then, woe on us. It will be much more difficult to summon up a People Power III, if again our people are disappointed.

* * *

Let me say my piece. I believe the post of Secretary of Public Works and Highways should go, in keeping with tradition, to an engineer or builder. Why should a lawyer or bookkeeper be given that vital job, which involves infrastructure, roads, bridges, and the safety of edifices (from earthquakes, etc.?) Over the past half-century, from 1946, only two lawyers "politically" got that job: Ilocos Norte Rep. Antonio Raquiza and former Bulacan Rep. Rogaciano Mercado. All the rest were prominent engineers, such as Dean Alfredo Juinio of the UP School of Engineering, Dean Jesus Hipolito of the National University’s School of Engineering, Dr. Fiorello Estuar, a noted engineer, prominent contractor like David Consunji, and even immediate past DPWH Secretary Vigilar, a West Point graduate and engineer.

I’m informed by Alikabok that the real recommendee of the "Search Committee" was Marikina City Mayor Bayani Fernando, an engineer and contractor (he built, for example, the EDSA Plaza Shangri-La hotel) and a successful city mayor. What happened? Did the "new" Palace not like the cut of his jib? Sanamagan. Let’s get real. The people (and the military who joined the upheaval) expect good government – plus efficient, effective government as well. Not another gaggle of "cronies" (not even Gloria’s – which is more the pity) running the show. This is not a circus. Why, even in a circus, old elephants and toothless tigers and mangy, lame lions are put out to pasture, not recruited "back" into the act.