Cheap shots and cheap pollutants

Just because we are now in the “campaign period,” there is no justification for cheap shots and low blows regardless of your political party or affiliation. Whether you are an actual candidate, the President of the Philippines or the target of political or personal insults or disrespect, you should not justify or excuse “hate speech” or verbal abuse as part of campaigning. You may call it immature behavior, you can call it “bastos” or lack of values or proper upbringing, call it a spineless response but please do not go on national TV justifying such malicious behavior to millions of Filipinos young and old as part of the campaign, because it is something they should not find acceptable or to be copied or justifiable.

The politicians and government officials in this country have gotten away with so much malice and uncouth behavior in their criticism of each other, while forgetting the example or standards that they set for the public and the youth. In an election run or campaign season, it is to be expected that political leaders will promote or extoll the virtues and character of their candidates or party mates. It would be normal to raise issues about competency, track record or challenge the integrity or morality of opponents and candidates. But what should never be done, not even by a popular president, is to attack the persona of opponents or to make negative personal remarks especially by one who publicly and proudly confesses his sins against God and against men. What happens when the opposition starts attacking the administration candidates regarding their court cases, their sexual preference, or even broken marriages or stained relationships? Next thing you know we will have a head-on confrontation or our modern day Dirty War of Words.

Whether you are the giver or the recipient of hate speeches, there is no justifying or excusing such behavior. It is what it is: Hate speech that divides people and fosters political disrespect. What many politicians and government officials overlook or fail to realize is that it is their words, their labels and their hate speech that their supporters, the media and ordinary citizens pick up and eventually include in their conversations and opinions. If you are a politician in the campaign trail, remember this warning that the police worldwide always used to remind suspects and criminals: “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” In the Philippines, anything politicians say, can, and will be used against them in the court of public opinion. Concentrate on the talents and abilities of your team because when you start attacking the competition, it only shows that they are affecting you, you are afraid of them and it is recognition that they are a serious threat. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.

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Representatives of the environmental group Greenpeace recently did some publicity efforts to call for a ban on “single use plastics” while another group called for a ban on “sachet” packaging of consumer goods such as shampoos, coffee, sugar etc. Aside from single use plastic bags and sachet packaging, I’d like to add my own call to ban small sized plastic bottles for drinks.

Most people don’t think about it, but if you have street sweepers in your community like we do in Pasig, try asking them what the waste materials they sweep are generally made of? If you walk around condominium construction sites most places are littered with plastic bags where vendors pour in soft drinks, buko juice, or ice tea. Partner to the plastic bag that is not food safe will always be a plastic straw and all of these will end up on sidewalks, gutter canals or drainage canals and eventually into rivers and Manila Bay or some nearby body of water. If consumers managed to wean themselves from plastic shopping bags provided by supermarkets, there is no reason why we cannot move away from single use plastics. 

Ironically, not many environmentalists have paid attention to small pet water bottles that are often the cheapest size bottled water and the most disposed and rarely reused. These small bottles probably compose the second highest volume of plastic trash that litter our country, but it is too much of a pollutant for just one glass of water. It should be outlawed or banned and the government should require water bottlers to sell drinking water in larger volumes like 750ml. Bigger volumes would automatically do away with small bottles and increase the potential for reuse or recycling of water bottles.

The call to ban sachet packaging is nothing new for me because believe it or not, I first heard this idea or suggestion from an expat or foreign executive of a multinational firm that sells shampoos and conditioners in sachets. The executive told me that while sachet packaging makes their product affordable for ordinary buyers, the truth was buyers were getting so much less for their money compared to buying shampoo and conditioners in bottle sizes. The sachet packaging apparently costs more than the spoonful of shampoo that goes into it, so you only think it’s cheaper but it is actually more expensive. The executive also realized that sachet packaging is not very biodegradable and therefore not environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, it would require a law or order of Congress or the Department of Trade and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to ban sachets, single use plastics and small sized pet bottled water and juices for being disadvantageous to consumers and certified pollutants or a threat to the environment. This is a serious challenge to the DTI and DENR and something whose time has come.

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