Think of Mother Earth this Ramadan/Holy Week

Aswe pause to take stock of our life this season of Holy Week and Ramadan, all of us cannot put aside what everyone in this country is experiencing right now. This is the heat wave that has been going on for several days now and has claimed (directly and indirectly) the lives of some people, especially the elderly.

Although there are few studies that makes “climate change” responsible for the heat wave, we cannot avoid making the conclusion that since we have accepted the results of climate change, the phenomena that many call “El Nino” seem to come more often year after year. It has affected the productivity of our agricultural sector and of course, the income of the people. It is therefore a factor that is worth focusing into as we plan for our future.

There are many theories that environmentalists advance regarding the reason for the heat wave, all pointing out to people’s abuse of mother earth. One of this is improper methods of farming, which render swatches of land without proper vegetative cover. Another reason is the indiscriminate cutting of trees which has reduced our forest cover. I really love the old song “Once there were green fields kissed by the sun; once there were valleys where rivers used to run. The song ended with now where are the green fields that we used to roam.” It would be nice to answer the singers, that these are now flooded areas because of neglect.

Rapid deforestation is an important factor because the trees are supposed to hold water during the rainy season, and reducing their numbers lessen the capacity of the hills and mountains to keep intact the water table, our major source of drinking water. This is also a controversial issue because we have elected officials who do not understand the connection between the use of earth resources and climate change. Our mining policies, reforestation (?) policies, even our population policies are defective to say the least.

It may be far-fetched to say that mining is so destructive that it leads to flooding, landslides, mudflows, etc., a reason given by government officials when such disasters strikes. Of course they can reason out that we earn a lot from the proceeds of mining (or logging before). But shouldn’t we weigh the pros and cons with the destruction it causes our mother earth?

These are food for thought as we celebrate the Holy Week and Ramadan. Exploiting our mother earth may not be in the group of personal sins that we ask for forgiveness during this season; but it takes a community to undertake the exploitation that is happening in this climate. Hopefully, this will not impact heavily on the future generation, whom we should care about. MC

Twoweeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body that advises the United Nations on rising temperatures, released a new report. Authored by some authored by nearly 300 scientists from 67 countries, the report is a summary of research conducted over the past five years. Its key message: “the world is approaching irreversible levels of global warming, with catastrophic consequences becoming inevitable.”

“Continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to increasing global warming, with the best estimate of reaching 1.5°C (2.7°F) in the near term in considered scenarios and modeled pathways,” the report said.

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land,” it added. In short, “the pace and scale of climate action are insufficient to tackle climate change.”

In December 2015, world leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference reached the historic Paris Agreement. It set long term goals foremost among which is to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees Celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees.

Apparently much of the talk about taking action has been mostly just talk. Experts are saying that the world has already warmed by 1.1C and is likely to breach 1.5C in the 2030s.

Despite efforts to fight global warming, sea level rises continue to happen due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt, said the IPCC report, adding that they will “remain elevated for thousands of years.” The report said the average rate of sea level rise was 1.3 millimeters (.05 inches) between 1901 and 1971, increasing to 1.9 mm (.075 inches) between 1971 and 2006 and further increasing to 3.7 mm (.15 inches) between 2006 and 2018. Meanwhile, according to the World Meteorological Organization, the past eight years were the warmest on record globally, due to ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations.

The IPCC report warned that “every increment” of global warming will escalate multiple and concurrent hazards: more intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall, and other weather extremes which further increase risks for human health and ecosystems; people dying from extreme heat; increased climate-driven food and water

WITHinitial investigation results pointing to Congressman Arnolfo Teves as allegedly behind the killing of Governor Roel Degamo and his escorts last March 4, the current running story of political violence brings Negros Occidental back to its not-sodistant past in the time of Moises Padilla.

Padilla was the progressive leftist albeit a lowkey community leader, who shook the political base of the Lacsons in Negros Occidental during the pre-polls campaign for the simultaneous national and local elections in 1952. He was politically weak in terms of guns, goons and gold that his powerful political foes were known for, but was unassumingly allied with then Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay who aimed for the presidency as the Nacionalista bet, against Liberal stalwart, incumbent President Elpidio Quirino, in the November 1952 elections.

Padilla was “feared” by the Lacsons for his social influence in the community of sacadas (sugarcane plantation workers) in Nergros Occidental and that his close community engagement might translate to a heavy delivery of votes for Magsaysay against Quirino.

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COTABATO CITY / ARMM CORRESPONDENTS

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Lourd Jim Diazon

Some news reports attributed to the late journalist Nestor Mata published on Manila Chronicles, Magsaysay’s Presidential bid took-off from his act of carrying Padilla’s dead body from where it was thrown out of a WW-II weapon-carrier truck in Magallon town. The vehicle was prior seen used by the local constables backing the incumbent governor (as established by government prosecutors, who had subsequently accused him in court and key members of his Constables security unit) over the arrest, torture and the killing of Padilla The town of Mafallon has since been named the Municipality of Moises Padilla.

Seeing the original movie on Padilla’s life (1962), one would be reminded of the political violence that engulfed Maguindanao, which was followed by the arrests of the Ampatuans and armed members of their CVO (civilian volunteers organization) militia backers on December 3, 2009, following the declaration of martial law by their ally, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The movie in the age of the black-and-white film starred the late Leopoldo Salcedo, as Moises Padilla, and Joseph Estrada, as Padilla’s friend, trustee of Padilla’s political foe’s family.

The arrest of the Ampatuan was (curiously) the last insecurity. Other adverse events, such as pandemics or conflicts, would make the situation unmanageable, the IPCC report warned further.

“A child born now is likely on average to have or experienced three to four times as many extreme climate events in their lifetime as their grandparents did,” said Mark Howden, a climate change professor at The Australian National University, who was a vice-chair for a previous IPCC working group and review editor for the current synthesis report. “We’re actually leaving a world behind us that is actually less safe than the world which we inherited, people of my generation,” he said.

Only “deep, rapid and sustained” greenhouse gas emissions reductions could arrest global warming and its negative impact. Simon Stiell, the U.N.’s climate change executive secretary, called the 2020s “a critical decade for climate action.”

The IPCC believes that mainstreaming effective and equitable climate action now will reduce losses and damages and that multiple, feasible and effective options are available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change. The challenge is to cut emissions quickly, sharply to create a safer, sustainable world.

In the Philippines, Caritas Philippines and the Social Action Network recently issued a statement renewing their commitment to “to save our beautiful land” even as they joined the United Nations, world leaders, experts, environmental defenders, civil society activists, and faith organizations across the globe in declaring a climate emergency.

Next week, we take a look at the impact of climate change on the Philippines and what needs to be done according to Caritas Philippines and the Social Action Network.

December toward the election campaign period to the May 2010 Presidential and local elections in which the pro-administration party had betted on top-notch lawyer Gilbert Teodoro who was then (incidentally, also) the defense secretary.

In his term, the late President Magsaysay had the most number of administrative edicts that implemented the legislated settlement programs, chiefly, the Osmena Colony Act of 1913, and the Quirino-Recto Colonization Act of 1936—and the 1935 Constitution, no less. Magsaysay made a serious presidential deal on addressing agrarian unrest in the North which the preceding Roxas and Quirino administrations failed to resolve in their terms combined. And as provided in both the Osmena Colony Act of 1913 and the Quirino-Recto Colonization Act of 1936, Mindanao was the answer.

Up until the months preceding the 1969 national and local elections, Marcos continued the remaining unimplemented phases of the settlement program on vast Edcor territory in Cotabato and Lanao provinces for the fresh influx of settlers from Panay, courtesy of his Cotabato Provincial Constabulary Commander Carlos Cajelo.

Leftist elements in Tigbawan had established the so-called “Stalin University” that catered for the military and political training crash courses of the remnants of the PKP and the succeeding sons of members of the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Hukbalahap). Martial law strategists had transformed the same armed group into rightist militias as an instrument of political harassments at LP bailiwicks, such as Mother Cotabato Province and Lanao. This was disclosed to the public by Pablito Jepana alias Commander Melody of Iloilo for a movie on his life story.