EARTHQUAKE, NOT THE BIG ONE?...

Just recently specifically in April 22 of this year, a 6.1 magnitude earthquake had struck Metro Manila or to be exact at Floridablanca, Pampanga. The quake had also been observed in neighboring cities but with varied magnitude. m The tremor had caused a widespread fear and terror since it is already in peoples mind about the big one coming.

For me, tremors of this magnitude are essential for areas expecting the big one. I'm not an expert of earthquakes neither am an employee of PAG-ASA, but in my own understanding quakes of tectonic origins are causes of movements of plates either in any direction, be it convergent, divergent or whatever. This means that frequent quakes of low magnitude could slowly release the potential energy stored by these plates as a result of plate movement. This tremor or slow movement is therefore necessary until plates stabilize. Metro Manila should be happy with what had happened but should be vigilant if in case the big one strike. Be prepared everyone.

HEAVY TYPHOON DEVASTATION DESPITE EARLY WARNING...

Despite early warning by PAG-ASA, Typhoon Pablo has recorded considerable damages to life, properties and government infrustructure. Compostela valley and Davao Oriental were the badly damaged areas with recorded higher casualties. But why this areas? When in fact long before, these areas were seldom visited by typhoon. I, for one, had spent my few years of my childhood in Davao Oriental specificallty in the Town of Banaybanay. Although we experienced flooding sometimes and earthquake most of the time, never that I experienced strong winds or typhoons. I had just experienced typhoon when our family had transferred to Cabucgayan, Biliran which was previouslty under the province of Leyte. The worst effect of typhoon I ever experienced was during the 80's when the second floor of our house was blown by Typhoon Undang. Our community suffered heavy damaged during that time.

(A fallen tree at Mati City, Davao Oriental; Photo courtesy of typhoonwatchphilippines.blogspot.com) How does this happened. A big changed on the usual track of the typhoon can be vividly observed for the recent years. We, the residents of Region 8 or the Eastern Visayas Region are very much thankful for this development since most of the typhoons visiting the country in the current year has never had a direct hit to our area. Weather forcasters explained it to high pressures usually present in our area. But do I have to celebrate for this development? When most of my relatives are also living in the heavily devastated Davao Oriental province?

CHANGE - IS IT FOR THE BETTER OR FOR WORST?

For the past five years I had been visiting Bohol for so many reasons; it is not only one among the most visited province in the Philippines having the numerous beautiful sites which are of interest not only to local tourist but also to international as well, but it is also the province where some of our sister NGOs were located- the DISOP assisted organizations like the SWCF. While not a first timer in visiting this place, my fascination and deep appreciation to see the more than one thousand hills that spread over some of the towns of this Bohol Province especially within the plains of the Towns of Carmen going to Sagbayan. I kept wondering how this hills emerged and why these hills emerged only in Bohol. I am not so amazed about the tarzier since it is not true that it is only endemic in Bohol since even in our place in Leyte, tarziers trive in the wild but not yet in captivity.

While revisiting the place, I had a distinct observation about the Chocolate Hills. Not that it remained green and has not turned chocolate, but the changes that slowly engulfed some of the hills - the slowly growing vegetation which somehow affects the appearance of these hills. I never hesitated to ask our tour guide which accompanied us during our trip if the government has done something to correct these changes. He answered that there is a deadlock between the National Government through thre DENR and the Local Government Unit through the Provincial Tourism on how to deal this matter. DENR of course will protect these growing trees especially that the President has issued Presidential Proclamation banning illegal cutting of trees to support his NGP or the National Greening Program with main objective of planting billion of trees. If in case after few years and all of these hills will be blanketed by these different trees, we will also lost this UNESCO proclaimed natural heritage, and we will never see the beauty of this hills once more. I hope the action of the authority would favor what is best for everybody, and it can only be done through consultation of the many. After all, the voice of the people is the voice of God, let it be so.

MAN NEVER LEARN OR JUST HARD HEADED

I remembered one atheist who said, "There is no God, what governs the movement and the interaction of our surrounding is just - NATURE. And nature is GOD"; that's according to him.

We never learned the lessons that nature has always thought to us "In all the actions that we do, we always get reactions out of it". Man always thought that the resources nature has provided is everlasting, that forever it would be available. For me this everything that surrounds us is part of God's plan to bless this mother earth in abundance of everything that man could ever think of. Dig the ground and you would find minerals of different kind, even air carries them. But did God told man to combine this minerals to form this powerful bombs that could wipe humanity? Never, and that is within man's nature of being very greedy.In a very layman's perspective alone, we can vividly witness this scenario. I myself has witnessed the balding of the forest in our locality because these poor farmers had learned to utilized these existing trees for a living- charcoal making. They never care if their attention are being called, at least they had already solved one problem or for the meantime had solved one- family hunger. Yet, when calamities come it is easy for them to blame local politicians and government employees.

The recent 6.9 earthquake that devastated Guihulngan and its neighboring areas is automatically blamed to be tectonic in origin and that geologist were puzzled for the appearance of new plate. For my own simple analyses since I'm not geologist or holding a degree related to it, plate that has recently appeared could possibly be the result of abusive extractions of our underground mineral resources of any kind applying the basic principle I had previously mentioned- action-reaction phenomena. And yet, industrialist never think of it. Now, politicians and policy makers in Metro-Manila had been looking at the Earthquake hazard map of Metro-Manila and its neighboring cities; the plates crossing their boundaries had long been identified, yet they never implement the necessary things to do to prepare these people from devastation. Afterall, it is easy to point fingers to one another. Are we not learning the lessons? (Pictures provided by Yahoo-www.quotednews.com and www.experiencenegros.com)

AGING MOTHER EARTH: ISN'T IT EVERYBODY'S CONCERN?

Before it is shocking to hear news about devastating calamities such as flashfloods, super typhoons, earthquakes of tremendous strength. But as we observed, their occurrence are becoming more frequent that a layman could not even explain why these had been happening recently. Why? Because their concern is not to maintain the ecological balance between man and mother nature; their main concern is how to survive the every day challenge of survival, to counter hunger even in an undecent way of living. Is there a way for them to understand the principle of climate change? Of global warming? None at all. Because their minds had already been bombarded with much sufferings brought about by competition for survival, because living on this very earth is full of uncertainties, of unfairness displacing the weak and raising tyrants to pedestal. Why this happened? If only we could transform the social triangle increasing the rich to majority and the poor otherwise, then we could probably change the figure of mother earth, too. Perhaps, we could share a little from ourselves to help change the face of the earth, after all it is us who would benefit its outcome.