Romancing the air

I never saw the wisdom of closing the entire Osmeña Boulevard for one whole day last Sunday and I never will. You do not close a major thoroughfare of a city of nearly one million just so a few health and sporting enthusiasts and environmental advocates can take over.

 Streets are there for a purpose, and it is not the purpose of Osmeña Boulevard to act as the world’s longest exercise gym, sporting track or advocacy forum. If streets and roads have to be closed at all, it should be for the benefit of the greatest number.

It is not as if health and sporting enthusiasts have run out of venues to exercise. And the environmental concerns of the world, such as they are, do not need the closure of one street in one city in a Third World country for one day to be addressed effectively.

The most pressing problems pertaining to the environment are caused by the big developed countries so obviously any practical and realizable solution should be initiated by them. What we can do over here is largely symbolic and not worth the cost.

The closure of even just one major street in a city whose road network is getting more congested everyday means that while a few people can have their “asphalt park” for one day, the rest of the citizenry will have to be rerouted, redirected and repacked.

As a result, many of the rerouted, redirected and repacked citizens ended having to spend a few precious pesos more taking two or more jeepney rides than they had to to get to where they were going. Those who had just enough fare for one ride had to walk the rest of the way.

Okay, the walk may have been good exercise. But it also meant being late for work (yes, there was work for some even if it was a Sunday and a holiday, being Independence Day) or other appointments. This in turn meant wages were slashed and opportunities lost.

I have nothing against good wholesome exercise. And matters pertaining to the environment are everybody’s concern. But inclinations and advocacies need to be undertaken with heads below the clouds and feet planted squarely on the ground.

The argument was that people had a whole day to themselves. What has been conveniently ignored is the fact that a far greater number of people, people who needed Osmeña Boulevard more than just a few who needed one more venue for exercise, had been unceremoniously cast aside.

And for what? A whole day of clean smoke-free air? But isn’t air constricted by nothing? Air circulates. The air along Osmeña Boulevard does not stay on Osmeña Boulevard. It goes even to Junquera from where it can come back polluted by smoke and the smell of cheap sex. 

What is worrisome is that the ante is being upped. Organizers of last Sunday’s activity are pushing the envelope. They want roads configured in accordance with environmental laws that are good on paper but never applicable on Philippine realities.

A non-motorized environment? I feel an unscratchable itch over that. The way to the future does not require a somersault to the past where everything moved on a man’s breath. The past can only offer valuable lessons, not a retirement home.

One valuable lesson, concededly, is that clean technology is good. But it is also very expensive. Only because it is good will it eventually be the wave of the future. But not today, not in Cebu, which cannot even afford to fix its roads, including Osmeña Boulevard. 

Again, I have nothing against health interests and a clean environment. I am all for it. But in the pursuit of these things let us bear in mind the attainability of our efforts. Because if all we do is mere symbolism of the ideal, maybe it is best to count our beans first.