There is one moving story I would like to share just to emphasize the enormity and seriousness of the problem of pollution. It’s about an 11-year-old girl, the daughter of a modest mother from Quezon City, and a consistent honor student in school, which, on the eve of the young girl’s eleventh birthday, died suddenly because of acute asthma. That evening, the mother found her daughter moaning, her chest heaving wildly, as she desperately gasped for air. The mother frantically searched for her daughter’s Ventolin inhaler. She pumped the much-needed medicine into the mouth of her daughter, which she did not notice to be turning deathly blue. But it was too late. All the mother could do was weep quietly as her only daughter died in her arms. Their house, the mother relates, is situated along a busy thoroughfare. People living in the area have been complaining about the numerous smoke-belching dilapidated busses and second-hand delivery trucks which operators deploy on that road especially at night.
These operators should be jailed for homicide! The death of this young girl should be treated as nothing less. Maybe one day, government could round up all violating operators and put them in a room filled to the brim with the very poison that come out of their vehicles. This may well open their unscrupulous eyes to the destructive nature of pollution.
Pollution is as widespread today as the air that surrounds us. Most of the email I received have complained of heavy smoke belching in areas like Quezon City proper, Cubao, San Juan, Paranaque, Las Pinas, Muntinlupa, Alabang, to as far away as Laguna, Batangas, Cavite and even Bulacan. However, this problem is not without a solution.
Gina Lopez and Evelyn Forbes of ABS-CBN’s Bantay Kalikasan have a laudable program on how to catch these homicidal maniacs. Citizens can now put their cellphones to good use by texting violators of the smoke belching law through their anti-pollution program "Bantay USOK." Anyone with a cellphone may text <USOK (space) plate number of the vehicle (space) location (space) vehicle description>. Send to 2366 for Globe and Smart. This undertaking is financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). After three successive reports, police officers would track down the culprit and serve the necessary arrest warrant.
However, the Bantay Kalikasan group cannot do it alone. Since pollution affects us all, every single Filipino must get involved.
Parañaque City Mayor Joey Marquez is also concerned about the growing pollution in his area. He expressed his desire to give his constituents clean air. As long as the law would permit it, he is willing to experiment on all possible solutions, even high-tech incineration technology. He is right. As the population grows by leaps and bounds, so will pollution levels in Metro Manila. People are slowly being gassed and trashed to death. We need to address the problem now, not tomorrow.
I had a discussion with Senator Loren Legarda, a very staunch advocate of environment-friendly legislation, on the issue of amending the Clean Air Act. We spoke of expanding the coverage of the Act to include the protection of our shores from environmental hazards, like the illegal dumping of wastes in the seas. During the habagat season, one could actually see tons of trash floating and being washed ashore especially in the Manila Bay area. This garbage comes from inter-island vessels that dispose of wastes offshore to avoid paying ports to handle their trash. This is in direct violation of the Maritime Pollution Law (MARPOL). One possible solution would be to devise a system of computation whereby the amount of wastes may be measured and weighed according to the number of passengers on board plus the vessel’s days at sea. If, for instance, a ship from Iloilo to Manila reaches port with less than the declared amount of garbage according to the computation (or no garbage at all), it only means that they dumped their trash into the sea. Instead of not paying anything because the ship has no garbage, the ship operators will be fined heavily. This system has been extremely successful in Europe. Perhaps, the 5,000-strong Coast Guard Auxiliary should take the lead in lobbying for such a law.
In another conversation with Senator Ed Angara, the opposition leader likewise agreed, and pledged his support for better, more practical laws on the environment. I hope a bipartisan agreement would soon be forged to address this pressing issue
Another solution to the pollution problem is the setting up of an Anti-Pollution Enforcement Agency (APEA). The Agency could focus on investigative and police work, and database development. More so, it could function as a super force that will harness together all appropriate agencies of government to enforce environmental laws. Perhaps, this super agency could be headed by a no-nonsense guy the likes of former Manila mayor Fred Lim.
A World Health Organization expert on pollution said that 60 percent of pollution could be solved if the government will run after smoke belchers. He even went on to say that if we can implement the odd-even scheme as an answer to the traffic problem, then he sees no reason why we cannot successfully implement the anti-smoke belching law. But, as always, we react to a problem instead of having the foresight. A good friend and long-time resident of Metro Manila, John Forbes, sums it best, "Perhaps too many citizens fatalistically accept bad air as part of life in Manila. It does not need to be so, because it can be changed."