Will RP join President Obama's change bandwagon?

Last Tuesday midnight, I joined the hundreds of millions of televiewers around the world watching the spectacular inauguration of Pres. Barrack Obama, the 44th President of the United States and the first black man to hold the highest post of the land. It was indeed a historic day that millions of people trooped to the National Mall in Washington D.C. so they could say that they were there when Pres. Obama was sworn into office, even if they were so far away, they merely watched the ceremony through the jumbotron that were placed in strategic areas of the Capitol.

While we only heard the stirring words of Pres. Obama’s inaugural speech, I have no doubt in my mind that he would put some action into his words, especially when he said, “To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations lie ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; no can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed and we must change with it.”

That portion of Pres. Obama’s speech was for countries like us. But are we ready to join the change bandwagon of Pres. Obama? Perhaps it is high time for us to ask ourselves, when will we fix whatever is wrong with this country? When we decide to fix ourselves, then we will join America and the rest of the world in changing for the better. If we don’t act soon, then all the more will the Philippines be left behind by the other nations.

Talking about change, we attended the Metro Cebu Summit on Climate Change last Tuesday at the MCWD Auditorium, organized by the City of Cebu where the Metro Cebu Airshed Governing Board was created. This was apparently the first such a governing board created in this country and Cebu is leading the way to point to the rest of the nation that preserving our climate should be taken very seriously.

Keynote speaker was Hon. Heherson T. Alvarez Presidential Adviser on Global Warming & Climate Change who pointed out “As global warming continues, the world is moving towards a dangerous tipping point. Scientists report that if the level of atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) reaches 450 parts per million (PPM), the world would reach the tipping point of irreversible climate change. The current level is now at 372 ppm and the tipping point may be breached by the year 2050, that’s 41-years from now.”

Alvarez added, “Unless we put a halt or at least slow down this process, by 2050, that tipping point will correspond to a two-degree centigrade increase in global temperature, melting ice caps as thick as three miles in Greenland, which in turn will raise sea levels by six to seven meters.” Call Sen. Alvarez the Philippine version of US Vice President Al Gore who came up with his multi-awarded environmental documentary entitled “An Inconvenient Truth”. During the Summit, Sen. Alvarez showed a Google Earth photo of Metro Cebu at the seven-meter level, where half of Mactan Island would be underwater.

In truth, we’ve heard more than enough statistics about the ill-effects of global warming and what we ought to do about it. Let me just say that the time has come to do something about the environment and take on a “damn-the-torpedoes” attitude to those who refuse to help or cooperate in this global endeavor. As Sen. Alvarez pointed out, “We need to go on a war footing in order to save our environment.” I fully agree that we must do something drastic to show our people that we mean business in this struggle.

While we’re elated that Cebu has taken the lead in the fight to preserve the environment, there are just too huge stumbling blocks along the way. A case in point are those pesky smoke-belching jeepneys that until now the Land Transportation Franchising & Regulatory Board (LTFRB) hasn’t taken off the streets. I would like to see this governing board get strict on smoke belching so we can have a better quality of air in Metro Cebu.

But first things first. I know that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has only one Air Quality monitor. DENR should put more Air Quality monitors along the major thoroughfares of Metro Cebu, not just in Cebu City so we can have an idea of the air quality in Metro Cebu and see if the new measures would improve our air quality.

As the old saying goes, “Prevention is better than a pound of cure.” One way we can effectively clean our air quality is by stopping the importation of used vehicles, especially those so-called “chop-chop” mini-pickups. Sure, they’re so cheap to buy in the market, but they are no longer sold in Japan because they pollute the environment. Yet 3rd world countries like the Philippines allow Japan to dump these polluting vehicles into our country. Stop selling these junks here and it’s a good start to clean our air.

* * *

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow entitled, “Straight from the Sky” shown every Monday only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 on SkyCable at 8 in the evening.