The environment and the Filipino mind

The other day was Earth Day. Focus of the celebration was of course the environment. As usual, some clean-up activities including those in beach areas were undertaken. As usual too, speeches were delivered on the importance of having a wholesome and healthful environment.

Despite these, the event attracted only scant attention from the general public. It was business as usual for most people, although the DENR personnel, for their part, initiated a number of happenings to mark the day, Lukewarm and lackluster were the fit qualifiers on the manner Earth Day was observed locally and nationally – which speaks a lot of how Filipinos have pushed aside from their consciousness any concern of the environment.

Global warming, as portrayed in “The Inconvenient Truth”, is no doubt a nightmare for everyone. Glaciers are melting and sea level is rising and many a metropolis can go under water. Floods and super storms, draught and diseases are a continuing threat. Social upheavals of untold magnitude are a likely consequence. But who cares for these?

The Filipino mind is a pragmatic mind. Its concern is the immediate and the proximate. The distant issue of global catastrophe seems far-off and remote and therefore not a source of current scare. Carbon emission? Greenhouse effect? Most Filipinos know what these are but they don’t fully grasp the dangers they pose. Or if they do, the realization seldom affects their way of life. Why is this so?

In the first place, the Philippines is only a speck in the huge mass of landscapes composing Earth’s livable areas. It’s a third-world country, hence, it’s not the major source of pollutants like the US, China, Europe and others. Control industrialization to control pollution? That’s for giant countries to do not for the small developing ones like this archipelago.

If country-dwelling Filipinos are not worried about air-pollution in Metro-Manila or Metro Cebu or fish kills in provinces, why worry about global warming?

It’s true, some kind of mass actions were taken when oil exploration was made in Tañon Strait. But these were instigated by cause-oriented people, not by the farmers or fishermen themselves. The latter must have showed up in these actions, but it’s a good guess they were there to get concessions – and they did get these – from the exploration outfit.

Social conscience? This might not have been foremost in the minds of the farmers and fishermen. Like typical Filipinos, their first concern is themselves and their families. Beyond this, there’s nothing but a hazy idea of what’s good or bad on the communal or nation-wide level. Consider these: Despite legal prohibitions there are still fishermen who blast their way into fishing grounds; attempts to reforest bald mountains are hampered by firewood gatherers who feel no qualms about cutting down year-old trees; smoke-belching vehicles spewing gaseous poison on pedestrians; and right in your neighborhood, is not garbage carelessly dumped along roadsides when nobody is looking?

You can be sure, no doubt, that tree vandals don’t cut down their own trees, nor careless drivers smoke out their own household, nor sneaky neighbors stack their rubbish right in their own backyards. No, these would be self-flagellating. But outside their immediate domains, who cares if others get the brunt of their carelessness?

Pragmatic and self-affected, that’s the Filipino mind. It’s always me first or we first, the “we” being the immediate kinfolks. To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with taking care of oneself first and of one’s family. But since one is part of a larger group such as the community or country the welfare of the latter should also figure in one’s appraisal of the effects of his ideas and actions. Such is the underlying concept of social consciousness or in a broader since, patriotism. But who is patriotic these days?

 The rice hoarders, are they patriotic? The rice smugglers are? What about those who purloined our fertilizer funds or embezzled our irrigation money? What about the big-time loggers?

Earth Day should reminded us that we are not an island anymore, entire and complete; that what happens in other parts of this planet affects us whether we like it or not. Towards our own parochial selves that day should make us readjust our thinking insofar as keeping this country green and livable.

 It’s everybody’s business, the environment is, not just the DENR people’s. The little things we do to make our milieu clean and beautiful will go a long way towards making this country survive despite the threats of climate change and global warming.

*  *  *

Email: [email protected]