Looming crisis
The water situation in Cebu has just gotten worse. October is supposedly an "okay" month, with enough water supply to last until the year’s end or even until the summer of next year. However, the situation is different today. The Jaclupan catchment facility in Talisay City, which is managed by the Metropolitan Cebu Water District is starting to dry up and the supply of potable water to the households is controlled so there will be enough. We are blaming the lean months of rain and intense heat, the ill effects of climate change.
However it is very cliché to talk about this topic, since we have been discussing this since we were all young boys and girls. Those who knew what would happen today back then were never wrong. It gets scarier as the years go by that what they foresaw became reality - oxygen for sale, no trees, no more water, and the list could go on. How could that be liveable for the next generation? It will be very hard to explain to them that this is the world we now live in, because of the actions of the people of yesterday.
Even if the water district says there is no water crisis yet, we should all be alarmed. This is a wakeup call that the world is not the same as it used to be. There is too much exploitation from different sectors of the environment. Recently, trees were cut down to make way for highways. Although it is a welcome development to add ease of convenience to the stakeholders, the damage has been done.
There is a huge battle between preserving the environment and moving forward today. We are compromising the future home for what we need and want at the present time. We don't know when the trees will grow back again, or if they ever will with the quality of air that we have today. It is uncertain if there will be more rain this year, or if it will be wetter than it used to be. Mother Nature has spoken; we have not done enough to protect her.
It feels like we don't get the point, at all. Despite seeing reality with our own eyes and feeling the effects of climate change due to abuse of the environment, we are still doing the same things and activities that bring damage. How hard is it to go back to the basics? Back then life was okay, no complication with whatever technology. I miss those days, and the more interaction we had with each other.
I don't know how we will go about this crisis with water and other resources that are depleting. Sure, we can always form task forces and talk about then prepare for the worst. But more than that we should also talk about what we should do next. If only we put words into actions, I could only imagine how far we could go.
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