Realizing how much has changed

A lot has changed in the past 50 years. Those who have been here long enough will know what I mean. And it’s not all technological or cosmetic changes but even a seemingly “emotional” shift as well. A lot of people no longer think or feel the same anymore. There is a more hurried and even frenetic pace to life these days, and a lot of the time it seems as if the working generation now just does not have the time to stop and enjoy their lives, or be grateful for the blessings around them.

I remember when I was a boy growing up in our ancestral home at Singalong, Vito Cruz (now Pablo Ocampo Street), I used to love it when it rained. I loved the floods that followed a heavy downpour. It was pure simple joy for me to wade in the waters that gathered in front of our house. I could hardly sleep the previous night waiting for the rains to subside so I could go outside. At the time, the water was clean and there was no danger in us swimming and playing in it. I even recall catching fresh water fish that could sometimes be found in the floods when they escaped the ponds surrounding the railroad tracks. We used to be scared of bubuli lizards we saw climbing up the walls and we’d while away our time playing with spinning tops and showing off our rubber bands. Those were some of the happiest times of my life and I’ll never forget them. They were good times. It was just after the war and the Philippine economy was booming second only to Japan in progress. You could buy American candy for mere centavos and jeepney fare was only 10 centavos.

Fast forward a few generations to today and I can see how much the world has changed. The world and everyone in it have changed. Life has changed. The electronic age has brought us a plethora of new innovations including computers, the Internet, e-mail, Facebook, Yahoo, Youtube and I’m sure so many more I don’t even know about. I find myself in the midst of the electronic media and I have my wife and daughter teaching me all about emails and Facebook walls and friend requests. It still amazes me sometimes when I am sitting at the table reading the newspaper and I see my daughter reading the same newspaper on her tablet. It makes me wonder if my granddaughter, who is just one year old, will still have the pleasure of reading newspapers on paper. Will she still get the joy of flipping through actual pages, or of getting newsprint on her fingers, or will she just go straight to the electronic bookshelf?

The way the world has evolved is both inspiring and scary to me. Change is good but too much change too fast can also be bad as well. The recent calamity the country faced with the floods got me thinking about how much overpopulation and over-industrialization have changed the world we live in. Heavy rains are now a cause for severe concern and ever since Ondoy typhoons are always a serious threat to life and property. Why has it gotten so bad over the last few years? I know that floods have occurred in the country since the dawn of time, but why is it that now they have taken such a deadly turn? Dams overflowing, houses getting engulfed, and streets turning into rivers of rainwater?

I’ve read a lot of news and opinions on the flooding that ravaged our country last week. There was no storm but there was even more rain than we had during Ondoy. Some said it was a problem of just too many people and too much garbage in too small a space, others said it was due to lack of proper flood drainage systems in place, and there were a few that called it the wrath of God. In my opinion, it truly is a problem of too many people concentrated in certain areas, too much garbage and no place to put it, too much urbanization and loss of natural resources, and of course lack of proper flood drainage infrastructure. Perhaps if one of these problems occurred without the others it might not have been so bad. However, all of them occurring together is just a deadly mix that resulted in a horrible catastrophe for the whole country.

The main concern is truly an environ-mental one I believe. It all starts from there. Climate change is already a cause for concern worldwide and we’ve all begun to witness strange weather phenomena like earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and now massive flooding from monsoon rains. We already know the earth is changing due to pollution and industrialization, and instead of trying to rehabilitate our dying world, we just continue to pollute it. Too much garbage and not enough reducing, reusing, and recycling, end up in stopped up gutters, overflowing landfills, and garbage in our rivers and lakes.

What used to be lush green lands, trees and parks have turned into concrete structures. This prevents the ground and the trees from absorbing the water from the rains. This in turn gives the rain nowhere to go. If you stop and think about it, it really seems very simple. The less trees we have the less roots in the ground to absorb the water. This causes floods, landslides, and a multitude of other problems. Pollution from too many cars and too much garbage coupled with over-industrialization have caused changes in temperature. Too much heat is trapped closer to the ground and this heat can enhance weather systems like cyclones, low-pressure areas, and the monsoon.

It truly saddens me to see the devastation left by the rains last week, but I know this is a problem that can be solved. It just requires everyone to work together. The relief efforts that have happened since the floods are truly heartening and make me truly proud of our fellow Filipinos, but these are just solutions to the effect and not solutions to the cause. The relief goods definitely help the people in need, but they do not prevent the calamities from happening again. A more permanent solution is needed or this will just keep happening again and again.

The government has pledged to work hard on a long-term solution to the problem. The Aquino administration is looking at a long-term “target flood safety level” in upgrading design standards for the government infrastructure that aims to withstand massive flooding throughout the country. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) said they were looking at a planning and implementation period of around 23 years, with a budget of P325 billion over a long period, and they have prepared a long list of structural mitigation measures. But for this year in particular flood mitigation projects amounting to up to P5 billion would be completed including beginning with updating obsolete pumping stations and fixing breached dikes.

These all sound well and good, I just hope we all do our part to contribute as well. This could be as simple as using reusable shopping bags, saying no to plastic, and recycling and minimizing garbage disposal. Sometimes it may seem like it’s such a small thing, but every little bit truly helps. Though it could take years and lots of hard work, I believe if we truly work together, we can bring our country back to the beauty I remember from my youth.