The joke goes that when Mother Nature failed to belch in Mayon, she farted in Haiti. If you check out the globe, you will see that the Caribbean nation is almost directly opposite the Philippines.
But the joke, of course, is cruel, considering the great catastrophe that the Magnitude 7 earthquake has descended upon that island nation. Nevertheless, even such a great tragedy is not without some redeeming factor.
For one, the Haitian earthquake literally jolted the world into the realization that the increasing frequency with which natural disasters seems to be occurring could, in fact, be a series of cries for help by an Earth in distress.
Even here in our own little neck of the woods, relatively minute changes in weather patterns are slowly beginning to become apparent. Days are increasingly hotter than before and rains either fall or fail to come when and where normally expected.
Matters on the environment have truly become such imperative and legitimate concerns that they have become platforms from which to launch causes, both legitimate and contrived. And where causes go, politics cannot be far behind.
And so we see a number of candidates running for public office on platforms held aloft by promises to do something about the environment. A certain Nick Perlas is running for president on such a platform. So is Senator Loren Legarda in running for vice president.
Others running for the Senate have made it a point to at least carry an environmental item in their campaign luggage. We should value the contributions of these candidates toward the environment even if, by campaigning, they can manage to raise public awareness.
There are, however, more brazen and unconscionable manipulators who unabashedly push the environment as an agenda for self-interest, as in associating environmental track records with the right to be able to participate in the Sinulog.
If you can see neither logic or connection, it is because there is none. The point is, the environment has become such a common item on the table that people tend to pick them up for whatever suits their purpose. Frivolity, however, can never be mistaken for floods or quakes.