Stop noise pollution… it is also pollution!

Over the weekend, United Nation’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Antarctic Peninsula to see for himself whether the stories of global warming was real or imagined. He came back to New York with the message that the Antarctic Peninsula is indeed melting at a fast rate and considered the problem of Global Warming a global emergency. For many years I’ve been watching many documentaries of National Geographic and Discovery Channel. I have long believed that global warming is indeed the biggest threat to humankind’s extinction since man invented the nuclear bomb.

Last week, ABC-News came up with a special report on global warming, sending Matt Lauer and his crew also to the Antarctic, while another group went to the North Pole and someone went to the forests in Brazil. That report also validated what Ban Ki-moon already confirmed that if we don’t change our ways, the end of the world might happen, not by the hand of God, but by man’s own misdoing. So what are we going to do about this problem? The least we can do is do something that is within our control.

I have written many times before about the pollution of two-stroke motorcycles, yet until now, the Philippine government hasn’t banned its commercial use. Almost all the tricycles we see or ride in our streets are powered by the two-stroke engine, an engine already banned in most Western countries. When are we going to do our part to save the environment from degrading any further? Perhaps the problem is lack of any political will to enforce any sanctions on people that pollute our planet?

What we really need to do is test our own political will, which brings us to another type of pollution: Noise pollution! Noise pollution has dire effects on our hearing. When the decibel reading hits the roof, one can go deaf. A case in point is what happened to me more than a decade ago when I was active in the Practical Shooting sport. I participated in many national tournaments, often firing my cal.45 without any ear protection. Years later, there are certain types of sounds I can no longer hear because I didn’t take good care to cover my ears when firing.

Today we have noise pollution problems done by loud disco music and unmuffled motorcycle or car exhaust systems. Loud disco music can be heard from disco bars that put their loudspeakers outside their premises as what happened to Pump 2 Restobar last week. This is where we need to revise the Anti-Noise ordinance because it is just too bureaucratic. We want the noise stopped right there and then without the need for a letter to the Mayor.

Perhaps the bigger culprit are those discorrals that put an intensity 4 loudspeakers that split one’s ear if you’re dancing next to a wall of speakers. These are found almost everywhere in Cebu. I can understand the reaction of my friend Rico Palcutto (regardless whether he poked a gun at that DJ or not) because I have the same problem with my neighborhood. In many occasions in the past, I was tempted to fire my rifle into those speakers to stop them! Thank God I was able to restrain myself.

This is why I have already recommended to my good friend Councilor Sylvan “Jak” Jakosalem that we need to amend the Anti-Noise ordinance and put more teeth in it without the bureaucratic hassles. We have so many chapels where someone prays the Holy Rosary at a very loud pitch disturbing the peace. Praying should be with reverence and piety, not blasted into someone’s ears! How I wish his beloved Eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal could help in this problem by issuing a proclamation limiting or even stopping the use of loudspeakers for chapels in the sitios.

Finally we have to stop the loud noise of those motorcycles or sport cars that remove their exhaust systems to gain more horsepower, in effect they are no longer street legal. In the United States and most western countries, this practice is illegal as racing exhaust should only be for use in racing circuits. In Cebu, the street is our racing circuits. It is time to stop this nonsense!

I suggest that the Anti-Noise Ordinance be strengthened to include acceptable decibel sounds in a chapel. When the standard has been established, then anything higher than what the law prescribes means that the discorral has to be immediately stopped by the police by the mere use of a decibel counter. Violations should have stiff penalties in order to discourage repeated violations. This is even easier for motorcycles or cars by merely asking the motorcycle or car manufacturer the decibel sounds of the vehicle when it was new. Give about ten percent more for older vehicles and we’ve set up a standard for apprehending those noise polluters. Let’s do this now and stop those ear splitting sounds that disturbs our peace and quiet.