MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
During the dry summer months, water interruptions in several parts of Metro Manila were as regular as the sun rising in the east. During the monsoon season, with clouds and rainfall tempering the weather, we’re told that the interruptions couldn’t be interrupted because “too much rain caused the water to turn turbid.”
As if that were not enough, the water level in our irrigation dams has not moved up as expected. And just as expected, the National Water Resources Board reminded one and all to keep saving water. “Save water” is their principal source of water.
Millions of pesos worth of free rides were a boon to commuters taking their Golgotha path every day. What was the opposite reaction? Bus drivers were not paid or not paid on time by their operators (or government), while jeepney drivers idled their jeepneys due to high fuel prices. The result, a shortage of public conveyances leading to intolerably long queues. No such thing as a free lunch, see?
Climate change is here, it has been here long enough, we’ve just become more conscious about global warming and such phenomena, now that our secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, at long last, is someone who speaks the language of science. And in the nick of time, too. Secretary Toni Loyzaga’s predecessors were politicians and military men.
Extreme climate feels normal when a downpour of 20 minutes can leave streets flooded like artificial lakes in Metro Manila and elsewhere. But if flooding is normal or natural, what do you call pumping stations that conk out in the middle of a flood? Equal to the volume of onrushing floodwaters is the amount of garbage mixed into the haul. Rain=floods=garbage. On the other side of “baha” and “basura” are the throwers of garbage who never learn that what they throw out comes back to punish them.
We need 200,000 new nurses. The critical shortage of nurses at the height of the pandemic was aggravated, now we know, by a ban on new nursing schools and courses that was only recently lifted. Ban now, lift 11 years later? Time waits for no man. What’s the opposite of time? Waste of time.