After the bag– the bottle!

After successfully campaigning to reduce or totally stop the use of plastic grocery bags, I believe it is time to call for a ban on single use 385 to 600 ML plastic bottles like the ones used for “mineral water.”

“Shocking” you might say until you study how expensive water is at such small volumes versus the garbage and environmental problems they create. The 385/600 ml hardly quenches your taste and I have observed that hotels, restaurants, pension houses etc. serve a lot of it. Yes they are convenient to carry and seem cheap but when you consider the amount of water, juice or soft drink that you get, you actually pay more for less liquid. I remember a country manager of a huge multinational company who told me that if he had his way he would campaign against “sachet sizes” or small quantity retailing because the Filipino buyer gets less for their money and produces more garbage.

While in Boracay I saw so many of the 600 ml plastic bottles washing up on the shore during my early morning walks. Unlike the old “white plastic” bags from groceries, the 385/600 ml plastic bottles are colorless and usually take in seawater or canal water and subsequently sink to the bottom where they slowly pile up. Aside from the obvious disadvantage to buyers of bottled water and the environmental impact, I also find it ironic that we all managed to wean ourselves from plastic bags but conveniently ignore plastic bottles that always fill up and fall out of most wastebaskets and dumpsters. Time for the bottled water industry to study consumer usage and behavior so they can give us more water and reduce the use of plastics. Go by the liter folks, that way you can also make sure you get enough water in your body while getting enough water for your money.

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I recently passed by a neighboring village called Capitol 8 and I happen to see an announcement that their village now enjoyed one of the fastest Internet signals in Metro Manila. After reading that I could not help but wish that our side of Kapitolyo would also soon have the same speed. I surmise that this happened as a result of an agreement or the willingness of Capitol 8 residents to let Globe Telecoms come in either to wire them up or install state of the art technology. To be fair, I rarely complain about signal strength in our neighborhood because there are a number of cell sites seen and unseen. In fact I live only a hundred meters away from one, and in our mini farm in Lipa City there are Smart and Globe towers a stone’s throw away. So I enjoy good signal even inside the bedroom.

Ironically, I also just read a Facebook post stating that residents of Damariñas Village are “quarreling” with each other because some residents want telecoms companies to come in and improve their signals and Internet speed while others are technophobic or freaked out by imagined radiation etc. Apparently the issue of bringing in appropriate technology has increasingly become a point of disagreement and disharmony that have created such “rich people’s problems.”

It is ironic because, Dasmariñas along with all the other exclusive villages are actually in the middle of the most polluted area in the country because of EDSA. I remember Jun Palafox , the urban planner and architect once telling me that the rich who have the money would be smarter getting out of “Carcinogen Avenue” and living in the true suburbs. If anything will kill the rich folks of Dasma and their neighbors it would be cancer due to air pollution or blood disorders or probably gunshot wound resulting from violent arguments about radiation from cell sites etc.

One thing that may have escaped the mind of the squabbling neighbors is the engineering fact that many houses in Makati’s exclusive villages are built like buildings and bunkers with such thick walls and sheet metal roofing or brick tiles with modern insulation that is impenetrable to cell phone or telecoms signal. The final irony is with all the money in the world they can’t get proper signal, they can’t accept and arrive at the correct solution and the members of the “genteel society” find themselves fighting like “Angry Birds.” Imagine the tombstone that reads: “Here lies “Relationship” – Killed by Pride and Fear not by technology or radiation.

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 “Believe it or not” – I was just informed that part of the plans for the transport modernization program of the DOTr requires every operator applying to have a franchise to have at least three units or more. Under the scheme there will no longer be single-unit operators which counts for many taxi owners in the country and worst of all, the provision is clearly Anti-GRAB and Anti-UBER. Did certain congressmen, lawyers and lobbyists work their charm and poison to insert this rule into the proposed transport modernization program?

It is also reported that once the program is in place, all public vehicles particularly cabs, vans or ride sharing vehicles must have an on-board CCTV system that records 72 hours of driving or operation. I get the point of using technology for public safety but it seems that policy makers forgot the law on “INVASION OF PRIVACY.” Do you want your passionate kissing scene recorded and possibly uploaded on the Internet? Do you want people to listen in on your phone conversations while on transit or pirate your business plans while discussing them with a colleague going to the airport? I think NOT.

DOTr and LTFRB: Learn to consult the stakeholders and community and not just yourselves and your list of “wanna be famous and influential” resource persons.

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