Clean Air Act: Are we play-acting?

There’s a move to postpone the implementation of the Clean Air Act.

The resolution has been passed by the Senate, and its now on its 3rd reading in Congress. It appears that some oil companies are strongly urging the government to postpone the Act because they are not yet ready to spend so much at the moment. The Clean Air Act demands, among other things, that by next year, the amount of benzene, a very toxic substance found in fuel, should be lowered by 50 percent from the present level. The improvements would require a special kind of technology and facility. Bus operators too are forcing DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza to postpone the vehicular emissions tests, and they are using the impending Iraq war as a reason. Give us a break? It took 12 years to get this bill together, and bus companies were given three full years to prepare. Now they’re using a string of flimsy reasons to postpone the bill’s implementation.

Metro Manila today is the world’s 3rd most polluted city and all we could think about is saving a few millions? For Pete’s sake! More than 7,000 Filipinos die of pollution-related sicknesses every year, while about 90,000 suffer various upper respiratory diseases all over the country. Are we so insensible as not to be alarmed by these figures? What should we tell that woman in Quezon City whose only daughter died because of acute asthma owing to the high level of lead in her young body, or the numerous street children who have died because of exposure to excessive carbon monoxide emissions? What about those young children who have suffered low IQs on account of very high lead content in the bloodstream? We have to bite the bullet now before it’s too late. The cost would be far greater in terms of public health.

It will take US$40 to US$60 million per company to upgrade its technology and facilities so that they can comply with the Clean Air Act. The actual cost is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the profits they are making every year. However, that is not even my main argument. How much is a single human life worth? How much does it cost to lose business because of low attendance by employees due to growing health problems? The US government estimated the benefits of having a Clean Air Act as ranging from about US$6 trillion to about US$50 trillion. These estimates reflect the value Americans give, in terms of dollars, on their health, business, and of course, their lives and that of their families. By comparison, the actual cost of putting up a Clean Air Act system in America for implementation over a 20-year period amounts to only US$523 billion, a small fraction of the estimated benefits.

We cannot treat pollution and health with cold detachment. Nor should we look at health and profit as if they are not interrelated. These twosomes are as matched and paired as fuel is to cars. We can only hope that the Amihan, which wheezes in our direction this time of year, would blow the pollution away from our city. But because of the greenhouse effect, most of the contaminated particles stay and hover over our heads. Hence the resurgence of upper respiratory diseases. Many local EENT doctors can confirm this.

Speaking of health, let me tell you something about benzene. This is a highly-flammable and toxic substance found in a number of products, but mainly in gasoline smoke. Aside from the danger of being swallowed, it can also be absorbed through the skin. A tiniest pinch of this chemical ingested everyday could produce a variety of illnesses ranging from headaches, vomiting, disorientation, exhaustion to increase and irregular heartbeats, convulsions, red spots on the skin, and loss of consciousness. Children have been known to suffer considerable IQ loss due to repeated exposure to benzene. If a man swigs just half a jigger of this chemical, he will first experience bone pains, then increasing bodily tremors, and then swelling of all kinds, which would lead, more often than not, to a slow and painful death. It can produce very serious health problems like blurred vision, anemia, leukemia to cancer. Studies show that more than 70 percent of the ailments are caused by vehicular emissions.

These are cold medical facts.

As I have said in my past column, the Clean Air Act may be a hard act to follow, but it’s a good start. Perhaps government could look into amending certain portions of RA 8749, especially those in relation to garbage. When I was in Vietnam last week, despite the millions of motorcycles being used by the Vietnamese people, I noticed that they have very clean city streets and good air quality. This could be attributed to their government’s obvious display of political will. If Vietnam can do it, why can’t we? If Unioil, a very small company, did not even blink an eye when it agreed to comply with the demands of the Clean Air Act, then why can’t the bigger oil companies comply?

In postponing the Clean Air Act, it appears that we are play-acting again. Are we really a strong republic with an equally-strong political will? Then why can’t our government implement a law that’s already in place? If we are just play-acting here, we might as well vote real actors into public office. At the very least, they could do a better job of play-acting.

* * *

E-mail: [email protected]