Philippines—A Fragile Paradise

Philippines—A Fragile Paradise

By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN, Ph. D.

From the northern shores of Batanes to the southern coast of Sulu, some 7,100 islands rise from the surface of the Pacific. Most were once biodiversity-rich islands, pock-marked by ancient high volcanoes, mountain ranges and  atolls which poke their heads above the blue surface. Many imagine the islands of Palawan, Cebu, Bohol, Negros and the deep waters reaching a depth of 11 kilometers, rich with corals, fishes of all kind and what is believed the energy of the future, deuterium.

The archipelago was besieged by super powers in the past, its territories still threatened now because of suspected rich oil and mineral deposits.

But the worst threat is internal. Citizen-initiated, aggressive, relentless, unethical to a point God-less. As if the future does not matter.

The world’s second largest archipelago country after Indonesia, the Philippines includes more than 7,100 islands covering 297,179 km² in the westernmost Pacific Ocean. The Philippines lies north of Indonesia and directly east of Vietnam. The country is one of the few nations that is, in its entirety, both a hotspot and a megadiversity country, placing it among the top priority hotspots for global conservation

The archipelago is formed from a series of isolated fragments that have long and complex geological histories, some dating back 30-50 million years. With at least 17 active volcanoes, these islands are part of the “Ring of Fire” of the Pacific Basin. The archipelago stretches over 1,810 kilometers from north to south. Northern Luzon is only 240 kilometers from Taiwan (with which it shares some floristic affinities), and the islands off southwestern Palawan are only 40 kilometers from Malaysian Borneo. The island of Palawan, which is separated from Borneo by a channel some 145 meters deep, has floristic affinities with both the Philippines and Borneo in the Sundaland Hotspot, and strong faunal affinities with the Sunda Shelf.

Hundreds of years ago, most of the Philippine islands were covered in rain forest. The bulk of the country was blanketed by lowland rainforests dominated by towering dipterocarps (Dipterocarpaceae), prized for their beautiful and straight hardwood. At higher elevations, the lowland forests are replaced by montane and mossy forests that consist mostly of smaller trees and vegetation. Small regions of seasonal forest, mixed forest and savanna, and pine-dominated cloud forest covered the remaining land area.

Unique and Threatened Biodiversity

The patchwork of isolated islands, the tropical location of the country, and the once extensive areas of rainforest have resulted in high species diversity in some groups of organisms and a very high level of endemism. There are five major and at least five minor centers of endemism, ranging in size from Luzon, the largest island (103,000 km²), which, for example, has at least 31 endemic species of mammals, to tiny Camiguin Island (265 km²) speck of land north of Mindanao, which has at least two species of endemic mammals. The Philippines has among the highest rates of discovery in the world with sixteen new species of mammals discovered in the last ten years. Because of this, the rate of endemism for the Philippines has risen and likely will continue to rise.

Plants

At the very least, one-third of the more than 9,250 vascular plant species native to the Philippines are endemic. Plant endemism in the hotspot is mostly concentrated at the species level; there are no endemic plant families and 26 endemic genera. Gingers, begonias, gesneriads, orchids, pandans, palms, and dipterocarps are particularly high in endemic species. For example, there are more than 150 species of palms in the hotspot, and around two-thirds of these are found nowhere else in the world. Of the 1,000 species of orchids found in the Philippines, 70 percent are restricted to the hotspot.

The broad lowland and hill rain forests of the Philippines, which are mostly gone today, were dominated by at least 45 species of dipterocarps. These massive trees were the primary canopy trees from sea level to 1,000 meters. Other important tree species here include giant figs (Ficus spp.), which provide food for fruit bats, parrots, and monkeys, and Pterocarpus indicus, like the dipterocarps, is valued for its timber.

Vertebrates

Birds

There are over 530 bird species found in the Philippines hotspot; about 185 of these are endemic (35 percent) and over 60 are threatened. BirdLife International has identified seven Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs in this hotspot: Mindoro, Luzon, Negros and Panay, Cebu, Mindanao and the Eastern Visayas, the Sulu archipelago, and Palawan. Like other taxa, birds exhibit a strong pattern of regional endemism. Each EBA supports a selection of birds not found elsewhere in the hotspot. The hotspot also has a single endemic bird family, the Rhabdornithidae, represented by the Philippine creepers (Rhabdornis spp.). In May 2004, a possibly new species of rail Gallirallus was observed on Calayan island in the Babuyan islands, northern Philippines. It is apparently most closely related to the Okinawa rail (Gallirallus okinawae) from the Ryukyu islands, Japan.

Perhaps the best-known bird species in the Philippines is the Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi, CR), the second-largest eagle in the world. The Philippine eagle breeds only in primary lowland rain forest. Habitat destruction has extirpated the eagle everywhere except on the islands of Luzon, Mindanao and Samar, where the only large tracts of lowland rain forest remain. Today, the total population is estimated at less than 700 individuals. Captive breeding programs have been largely unsuccessful; habitat protection is the eagle’s only hope for survival.

Among the hotspots other threatened endemic species are the Negros bleeding art (Gallicolumba keayi, CR), Visayan wrinkled hornbill (Aceros waldeni, CR), Scarlet-collared flowerpecker (Dicaeum retrocinctum, VU), Cebu flowerpecker (Dicaeum quadricolor, CR), and Philippine cockatoo (Cacatua haematuropygia, CR).

Mammals

At least 165 mammal species are found in the Philippine hotspot, and over 100 of these are endemic (61 percent), one of the highest levels of mammal endemism in any hotspot. Endemism is high at the generic level as well, with 23 of 83 genera endemic to the hotspot. Rodent diversification in the Philippines is comparable with the radiation of honeycreepers in the Hawaiian Islands and finches in the Galapagos.

The largest and most impressive of the mammals in the Philippines is the tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis, CR), a dwarf water buffalo that lives only on Mindoro Island. A century ago the population numbered 10,000 individuals; today only a few hundred animals exist in the wild. Other mammals endemic to the Philippines include: the Visayan and Philippine warty pigs (Sus cebifrons, CR and S. philippensis, VU); the Calamianes hog-deer (Axis calamaniensis, EN) and the Visayan spotted deer (Rusa alfredi, EN), which has been reduced to a population of a few hundred on the islands of Negros, Masbate and Panay; and the golden-capped fruit bat (Acerodon jubatus, EN), which, as the world’s largest bat, has a wingspan up to 1.7 meters.

The Negros naked-backed fruit bat (Dobsonia chapmani), which was thought to be extinct in the Philippines, has recently been rediscovered, on the islands of Cebu in 2000 and Negros in 2003.

Reptiles

Reptiles are represented by about 235 species, some 160 of which are endemic (68 percent). Six genera are endemic, including the snake genus Myersophis, which is represented by a single species, Myersophis alpestris, on Luzon. The Philippine flying lizards from the genus Draco are well represented here, with about 10 species. These lizards have a flap of skin on either side of their body, which they use to glide from trees to the ground.

An endemic freshwater crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis, CR) is considered the most threatened crocodilian in the world. In 1982, wild populations totaled only 500-1000 individuals; by 1995 a mere 100 crocodiles remained in natural habitats. The recent discovery of a population of this species in the Sierra Madre of Luzon brings new hope for its conservation, as does the implementation of projects aimed at raising awareness and protecting the crocodile’s habitat. The Crocodile Rehabilitation, Observance and Conservation (CROC) Project of the Mabuwaya Foundation is active in carrying out such projects.

Other unique and threatened reptiles include Gray’s monitor (Varanus olivaceus, VU) and the Philippine pond turtle (Heosemys leytensis, CR). A newly discovered monitor lizard, Varanus mabitang, from Panay is only the second monitor species known in the world to specialize on a fruit diet.

Amphibians

There are nearly 90 amphibian species in the hotspot, almost 85 percent of which are endemic; these totals continue to increase, with the continuing discovery and description of new species. One interesting amphibian, the panther flying frog (Rhacophorus pardalis), has special adaptations for gliding, including extra flaps of skin and webbing between fingers and toes to generate lift during glides. The frog glides down from trees to breed in plants suspended above stagnant bodies of water. The frog genus Platymantis is particularly well represented with some 26 species, all of which are endemic; of these, 22 are considered threatened. The young of all Platymantis species undergo direct development, bypassing the tadpole stage. The hotspot is also home to the Philippine flat-headed frog (Barbourula busuangensis, VU), one of the world’s most primitive frog species.

Freshwater Fishes

The Philippines has more than 280 inland fish, including nine endemic genera and more than 65 endemic species, many of which are confined to single lakes. An example is Sardinella tawilis, a freshwater sardine found only in Taal Lake. Sadly, Lake Lanao, in Mindanao, seems likely to have become the site of one of the hotspots worst extinction catastrophes, with nearly all of the lakes endemic fish species now almost certainly extinct, primarily due to the introduction of exotic species (like Tilapia).

Invertebrates

About 70 percent of the Philippines nearly 21,000 recorded insect species are found only in this hotspot. About one-third of the 915 butterflies found here are endemic to the Philippines, and over 110 of the more than 130 species of tiger beetle are found nowhere else.

But Where Are the Forests

The Philippine forests are rapidly disappearing. By 2025, there may be no virgin forests, many forestry experts predict. Non-believers scoff at this, saying it is an exaggeration. But the figures cannot be wrong. The effects of deforestation are not figments of imagination. The worsening poverty caused by inadequate and ruined natural resources are real.

The rate of deforestation in the country is among the highest in the world. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, in 1934, 57 percent of the country or 42 million acres were forested, 26 million acres of which was primary or virgin forests. In a span of 50 years, almost two thirds of the forests was lost to deforestation as indicated in a study by Frances Korten of the Ford Foundation in 1990. It found out that the country's forest was down to only 16 million acres, 1 million of which was virgin forests.

But the worst deforestation happened during the period of 1990 to 1999 where 750,000 acres of virgin forest were lost. Today, only 1.75 million acres remain of the nation's virgin forests.

The loss is incredible, the rate of deforestation in that decade was almost 75,000 acres a year. It also came at a time when logging ban was imposed in some selected sites in the country.

As a result, flooding, soil erosion and degradation pegged at 100,000 tons of soil yearly, loss of species diversity and genetic material, loss of human lives and properties and aesthetic and recreational loss were at their worst.

Much of the blame I on governments that over the years have passed laws favorable to logging concessions and implemented forest protection poorly.

Unchecked illegal logging remains the main culprit,  government negligence has prompted the devastation of forest. Today, much of the remaining forests are still being invaded by commercial loggers.

The country was Asia's greatest exporter of rainforest timber since 1920s and remained so until 1960. However, overzealous extraction, disregard for future supply and poor logging practices, exacerbated by illegal logging, have effectively destroyed the industry and severely degraded much of the remaining forest.

Philippine forestry laws passed since 1930 have failed to provide adequate security provisions for virgin and secondary growth forests, thus the forests had virtually no protection at all. For instance, there is only one forest guard for every 7,500 acres.

But even then, many official policies and strategies from the very start were faulty. Laws that required harvesting on a sustained yield basis were lacking, the logging industry lacked supervision, little attention has been paid to selective logging and timber extraction methods allowed logs to be taken even from extremely steep and fragile slopes.

Although it was obvious by the early seventies that forest resources was dwindling rapidly, practices that sustained yield were not heeded. Legislation to phase out raw log exports, in the belief that this lucrative trade was the main cause of overcutting, was first introduced in 1973. However, the ban was never implemented and a modified scheme served to concentrate ownership of timber licenses in the hands of a few Marcos supporters, with little commitment to reducing raw log exports.

Despite a subsequent ban on the export of raw logs since 1986 and the not-so successful community-based forest management there is still a continuing bias towards log production. Even after 1991 when logging was banned in sensitive areas such as virgin forests, in residual forests with a slope of 50 percent or greater and in watershed areas, compliance with the mandatory conditions and prevention of illegal logging is made difficult by insufficient resources.

From 1972 to 1988,  the logging industry amassed $42.85 billion in revenues at the rate of $2.65 billion a year. But it also laid to waste some 8.57 million hectares of forests. Over the same period, loggers destroyed 9.6 million acres of virgin forests, raking in $19.4 billion in income.

The country's forest cover is now only 17 percent, far below the 60 percent required for ideal ecological balance. If the trend continues, there will be no forests by 2050 and that the Philippine hardwoods which used to dominate the forests will be gone.

Decades of forest destruction by wanton and indiscriminate logging have made the country prone to landslides, this has led to the degradation of watersheds which are basically the lifeline of food production and water supply. because of environmental degradation, the Philippines has become one of the most disaster- prone countries in the world where tremendous rise in threats to life, resources and property is always widespread.

Such a situation is difficult to put back into order

Deforestation is the major reason behind flooding, acute water shortages, rapid soil erosion, siltation and mudslides which have proved costly not only to the environment and properties but also in human lives.

Reversing the tremendous forest depletion is a gigantic, if not, an impossible task, considering that the rate of deforestation far outstrips the rate of reforestation.

Social forestry, where forest productivity rests on local community participation, is showing signs of progress in the country. But the strategy is not enough. More so because land ownership and forest management are issues which cannot be separate from each other. The Legal Resources Center (LRC) says that for the government to have an effective forest management program, some of the existing government environmental policies need to be overhauled.

True enough. Many environmental government policies look at conservation without consideration of the rights of the people who live where conservation or environmental programs are. While the Philippine Strategy for Sustainable Development calls for local participation in forestry programs, the truth is, indigenous peoples' participation is marginal, solicited only for the purpose of lending projects cultural credibility. 

Mount Pulag National Park in Benguet is an ideal example. Many times used as a reason to avail of international funding of environmental programs, majority of the people are never involved in a real sense. The Kalanguyas, tired of the exploitative approaches of so- called environmental program implementors, bluntly told the government it has no need of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the area.

 

Forestry projects in the Philippines has devoured millions of dollars in loans and grants. But there is little to see. In 1990, the government borrowed $325 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for a national reforestation plan. It went to the dogs. The Upland NGO Assistance Committee (UNAC), an umbrella organization of 125 upland NGOS working directly with upland communities concluded that the program was a failure. Politicians meddled in the program, government foresters became contractors, trees species planted were for commercial use, and the reforestation targets were not reached in many parts of the country.

The program was ill- conceived and managed and relied on insufficient data. The function of the multilateral banks is to make hard-currency loans for projects that can generate foreign exchange for repayment. Thus, they are ill-suited to solving environmental problems. ADB's provision of massive environmental loans to the Philippines accelerated the very damage it intended to reverse.

The continuing loss of forests in the Philippines is a result of combined administrative mismanagement, corruption and social inequity. The value of forests, both as a resource base and as an environmental control, remains undervalued in the face of over-riding economic need.

By 2017, Food Security Will be Threatened Globally Due to Diminishing Biological Diversity

By 2017, Food Security Will be Threatened Globally  Due to Diminishing Biological Diversity

By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN, Ph. D.

Food. We all need it. But most of us pay little attention to where it comes from. Most rarely give thought to how the world’s rich variety of nature—biological diversity—contributes to the food on our table.

The world’s population is growing so quickly and its nutritional needs are so far from being met. BY 2017, humanity must produce as much food as it does now because agriculture is failing to meet the challenge.

The reason is, the environmental basis of food production is being destroyed  by human aggression mainly habitat destruction.

Our planet’s food security depends on saving nature. This is because genes from wild crop plants are the ones that provide protection of crops from pests and diseases.

These useful genes are regularly introduced by plant breeders into domestic varieties. Wheat, rice, corn potatoes and all staples rely on wild genes.

Unfortunately the habitat of these original crops are being destroyed at a very fast clip.

Wild or native plants and animals and their habitat contribute to humans’ survival. Yet we often disregard that forests ensure farmers with enough water to grow crops. We forget that it is through decomposition, pollination that crops are fertilized and are made to reproduce.

We are killing the biodiversity of “survival foods”, those crops that can grow in extreme heat or cold, poor soil, little water, too dry or too salty environs.

Survival foods have genes that allow food crops under extreme harsh conditions.

Most of the remaining genes of original wild crops are in the genebanks of multinational food corporations who now control global food production and supply.

Worst, the indigenous knowledge on these food crops by indigenous peoples are being eroded by wrong and inappropriate introduction of modern technology and globalization.

Worldwide, wild crop varieties are being destroyed. Tropical forests that contain 80 percent  of world species are being razed to a staggering rate of two million hectares a year.

At a conservative estimate, 50,000 species, or about one in five of all plants will be extinct by 2050.

Some of the most important sites where crops originated and other wild treasures, are being destroyed by deforestation, mining and settlement encroachment.

Daily, biological diversity, Earth’s life insurance is eroded. Thereby eroding food security.

But not many are heeding the danger signs. 

Because not many humans now really care for the next generation. 

The (West Philippine/South China) Sea Cries while Politicians Roar

The (West Philippine/South China) Sea Cries while Politicians Roar

 As Asia eyes the heating territorial struggle by the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia’s of the so-called West Philippine Sea (as claimed by the Philippine government) or  South China Sea (as dubbed by China), the most confronting challenge obscured by political rhetoric so underrated is the destruction of the marine ecosystem.

The Sea’s status as a critical waterway draws attention away from the fact that littoral Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most diverse global marine bio-systems, hosting 76 percent of the world’s coral species and 37 percent of reef-fish species.

Over the past two decades there have been documented instances of Chinese fishermen in the Spratly Islands and surrounding waters indulging in large-scale illegal capture of fish using cyanide, dynamite, and detonating cords. The wide range of sea life targeted has included endangered sea turtles, giant clams, giant oysters, sharks, eels, and large pieces of highly ornamental coral.

In the wake of a UN tribunal’s quashing of Beijing’s claim to historic rights in the Sea, what has been largely overlooked is the court’s censure of Beijing’s rampant destruction of marine life around the sites of its reclamation and other activities in the Spratly Islands. The construction, the judges held, had “caused permanent and irreparable harm to the coral reef ecosystem.” Yet Chinese leaders refuse to accept the tribunal’s criticism. Beijing, in fact, denies its island-building posed any danger to the natural habitat of the region, even calling it a model “green project”.

Nor was the damage inadvertent. The tribunal found that Chinese authorities were fully aware of the nature and scope of activities undertaken but failed to prevent them. Despite its obligation under Articles 192 and 194 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to preserve and protect the marine environment, Beijing supported activities that harmed the fragile ecosystem of the  Sea.

For years, China’s most destructive activity in the  Sea has been giant clam poaching, which is said to have destroyed more than 40 square miles of some of the most bio-diverse coral reefs in the world. Chinese poachers reportedly use boat propellers to loosen the valuable clams, whose shells are sold as luxury items in China. Not only does digging up a reef destroy its ecosystem, but because of the interconnected nature of Sea fisheries, damage in once place causes repercussions elsewhere.

Evidence notwithstanding, Beijing claims its activities provide a public good. At the Shangri-La Dialogue earlier this year, Admiral Sun Jianguo, the People’s Liberation Army’s deputy chief of general staff, said that apart from “meeting the necessary defense needs,” China was carrying out construction on some islands and reefs in the  Sea to better perform its international responsibilities, including environmental protection. If anything, Chinese analysts say the widespread damage to the regional marine bio-system must beblamed on rampant poaching that regional states collectively failed to prevent.

Such claims serve to distract attention from the destruction wrought by Chinese island-building and other activities on the marine environment. Underinternational law, island-building must be preceded by an environmental impact assessment. Beijing’s omissions in this regard are inexcusable. In conceiving their island-building plans, Chinese engineers would have considered the environmental consequences. Surprisingly, China’s position paper submitted to the arbitral tribunal in December 2014 did not mention any studies undertaken to assess environmental damage caused by large-scale reclamation. By refusing to accept responsibility for its actions, Beijing has shifted the onus for remedial action to other littoral states.

Faced with an environmental disaster, Southeast Asian states must collectively move to preserve and protect their regional maritime environment. A primary consideration is the conservation of fisheries, particularly the management of straddling and migratory fish stocks. Recent reports suggest the stocks in the  Sea are in a precarious condition — fished down to between 5 and 30 per cent of 1950s levels. With illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing at an all-time high, there is an urgent need to coordinate efforts. Regional states will need to begin by creating greater transparency about resource exploitation activities in the maritime commons. Each side must promote best practices to ensure that the ecosystem is properly preserved and sustainably exploited.

Creating a regional mechanism to preserve the marine environment is going to be the most challenging part of this project. In April this year, at the first meeting of a study group of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific in the Philippines, discussions were held on evolving codes and protocols for marine environment protection. The group stressed developing a collective approach in managing commercial and livelihood activities in the oceans. But particular emphasis was given to preservation of coral reefs in East Asia.

This isn’t the first time regional states have come together in the interests of the natural habitat. In 2011, when the UN Environment Program (UNEP) relocatedits Coral Reef Unit to Bangkok, Southeast Asian states collaborated in developing tools and methods to enable ecosystem-based approaches to coral reef management. In 2012, the Asia Pacific was a target region in the UN document, “The Future We Want,” and its identification of coral reef protection as a central objective and a Sustainable Development Goal to be achieved by 2020. But despite its calls for “conservation and sustainable usage of oceans” and elimination of “the multiple anthropogenic pressures on coral reefs,” practical measures undertaken have been less than successful in protecting the marine ecosystem.

Even so, the UNEP has been the principal instrument by which the region has applied ecosystem management. The program has focused on preventing marine litter; building coral reef resilience in the face of climate change and ocean acidification; strengthening the use of the value of coral reef ecosystem services in public and private decision-making; enhancing data and information for ecosystem-based coral reef planning and management; and institutional support and outreach.

As the world obsesses over the geopolitical effects of the  Sea dispute, there are urgent questions about the marine environment that need to be answered. The marine resources of the  Sea are central to the national economies, the livelihoods of many of their coastal residents, and important as a source of cheap and nutritious food. There is an impression, however, that the sovereignty disputes have diminished the ability of governments to work together to manage the marine resources of the  Sea. Regional governments must dispel this notion. China and its neighbors must put traditional rivalries on hold, and combine effectively in a renewed bid to revive and restore the maritime ecology of the Asia Pacific.  

Why Philippine Media is Facing a Crossroad in Ethics In DU30’s Time?

Why Philippine Media is Facing a Crossroad in Ethics In DU30’s Time?

……Michael a. Bengwayan….

Many readers  of leading broadsheets and those with time to kill hearing obviously information imbalance on TV raise their eyebrows  at the messages they are getting these days.

One can only speculate, these news sources have motives, other than factual, fair and balanced news.

Pundits say it’s politics. Others say, there is more to it than meets the eye.

Truth is,  the information imbalance has taken its worst form of globalization. Associated Press (AP), Agence France Presse (AFP), Reuters and United Press International (UPI) throw so much information garbage to the Third World but nothing is heard in the developed world about the good things happening in the rest of the world.

Except bad things about the developing nations, of course, that hog the limelight

This resulted to the emergence of  media wires more appreciating of the developing countries contributions to the global community—Interpress Service, Panos News and Features, Gemini News Service—to name a few.

Not to be outdone CNN and BBC do the same things—highlighting wars, disasters, famine, death and destruction—from the smallest country in Africa to the Middle East to the South Pacific. But barely mentions that a poor farmer in Aceh is contributing so much effort to reducing  global warming.

Such gave rise to Al Jazeera.

It is evident the market economy has caught up with the media, making it a producer of commodities. Creating for itself an artificial homogenous culture where consumerist interests and values are dominant, diversity is suppressed and stereotypes are enforce.

In other words, good news is bad news. Bad news is good news. It is better to portray drug pushers being killed, rather than a society and future generation being saved.

Much better to question about the rights of criminals and to hell with the rights of criminals’ victims.

Because cash mentality and market forces have marginalized the real intentions of journalism

The media has been globalized, unable to escape Marx’s theory that the ” bourgeoisie in exploiting the world market, has given a cosmopolitan  character to production and consumption [sic] and as in material so in intellectual production”.

Once at University of Linnaeus’ cobbled streets in Kalmar, Sweden, I sat down at a burger outlet with Editor Carlos Dada of El Salvador’s El Faro who said “ there is little difference between CNNization and McDonaldization. Both push blatantly advertisement giving rise to less intellectual audiences and consumers, seldom wary of the source, credibility and implications of information”.

Right there and then, I looked at him, at my Big Mac and threw it on the stone pavement. I had been eating but equally supporting the enemy.

Carlos, who donned Levis the whole month, had been sleeping with one.

Globalized journalism is the newest threat to freedom of expression. And wittingly or unwittingly, our broadsheet and leading TV media have been feeding it. Because what they print and air are picked up by global media and it adds to their coffers.

It is evident by the Western media’s domination of communications technology. It creates an information imbalance where the flow of information from the West is immensely overwhelming, while only the bad news from the rest of the world goes to the west.

The world hears of the US political campaign everyday while 2 million people are dying in Sudan and oil companies raze thousands  of hectares of forests  in Papua New Guinea.

Globalized media can control and colonize the mind. It results, among others in the marginalization of other forms of media like public access media.

You must be thankful there is social media.

Even if the local journalist covers much of the truth, he is sidelined because of globalized media. Unknowingly, he is being silenced. And more precision than other blunt strategies.

We are all globalized. Who is not? And yet I maintain, we are not all the same. Distinctions must be made.

The future of a balanced, fair and truthful information sharing hangs in the postmodern, geographic and neo-liberal economic order.

But more than this, it should rest on a certain amount of sense and sensibility./Michael a. Bengwayan 

Reclaiming The Dignity of Earth

Reclaiming The Dignity of Earth

…..michael a. bengwayan…

In graduate school in rural development, I always tell my students development can occur anytime, anyplace, in varying degrees, by so many different people.

It is not at all different in Earth-care. At the point of ecological discourse in  development in Earth-care, two major issues will occupy the minds and hearts of humankind, especially those enmeshed in Earth  -caring: What is the destiny and future of planet Earth when pillage is the present  logic of development and consumption? What hope is there for the poor, two thirds of the humankind when the culture of the satisfied have become enclosed in consumeristic selfishness?

We are crossing the threshold of an ecological age which calls for a change paradigm—it calls for a new pedagogy, new imagination, new ethics, new politics, new discovery of the sacred and a new process of individuation (spirituality). We have to accept and force paths that lead to healing of the Earth and the recovery of its ravaged dignity.

We have to reclaim the sacred. Unless we collectively decide to change the course of civilizatyion and shift its thrust from the logic of means at the service of an exclusionary accumulation to a logic of  ends serving the well being of planet Earth, humankind will find itself facing violence and destruction at all levels never before seen at the face of the Earth.

In fact, the tinderbox is lit and burning.  The wars for resources like oil (resulting to upheaval  of states like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Yemen), water battles (South China Sea/West Philippine Sea, sea territorial -grabbing (South China Sea/West Philippine Sea,  and airspace disputes with a new form of barbarians.  

There must be a new covenant with Earth. One that God established with Noah after the Deluge. The Good Book said (Gen 9; 13-16) ”I  set my bow on the clouds to serve as a sign between me and the Earth….everlasting covenant …between God, all living things,  all mortals that are on Earth.

Unfortunately, we blew it. We have no  sense  of kindness, compassion,  cosmic solidarity and  reverence of the deep mystery.

Unless we start reclaiming the dignity of Earth, we are no sons and daughters of the rainbow.

Vanishing Frogs Can Defeat Dengue

Vanishing Frogs Can Defeat Dengue

By Michael A. Bengwayan:

Horan Dignay (not his real name) and five other kids played like any other kid in the neighbourhood’s mud pool last year. They went home soaked but ecstatic. That night fever set in on all six kids.

After a week they succumbed in a Philippine hospital north of Manila. The Department of Health and the Baguio General Hospital   blamed dengue  for their untimely deaths.

.

Last year, almost 60,000  cases  were reported  in the Philippines, more than 50 of which were fatalities in Benguet province, north Philippines, the National Epidemiology Center of the Philippines' Department of Health said.

This year, despite the availability of dengue vaccine, dengue cases are up by 36 percent,  the government’s health department warned. http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/07/21/1605081/philippine-dengue-cases-36

The Department of Health (DOH) Epidemiology Bureau recorded a total of 57,026 dengue cases from January to June 25 this year, which is way above the 42,026 cases posted during the same period a year ago.

Dengue is a tropical disease caused by a virus of the mosquito Aedes Aegypti. It is characterized by high fever, headache, rashes, and severe joint and muscle pains. Extreme cases result to bleeding and death of the victim.

As the rainy season hovers, and the temperature going up, dengue once again rears its ugly head[E5] . The carrier of the deadly virus, Aedes egypti, is multiplying by the thousands.

And something man has taken for granted and have killed, maybe the only answer:frogs.

The province of Benguet doesn’t intend to lose any person again due to the disease, thus Benguet State University (BSU) has scientists working to counter the growing dengue threat.

They are bringing back the frogs which used to abound in the land with the communities’ help.

Dr. Luciana Villanueva, BSU’s vice president for research and extension pointed out to this writer, “We have no other recourse but to turn back to nature for help. The frogs are our most effective allies in the fight against the fearsome Aedes egypti mosquito.”

“We are rallying communities not to kill the frogs by not using insecticides for the fourth successive year and positive results are showing,” she added.

Villanueva informed that BSU team encourage locals to make ponds for frogs to naturally set in. They are also distributing pairs of male and female frogs to farmers and hobbyists.

Villanueva led scientists, community leaders, citizens and students last April 30 to celebrate and strengthen the annual International Save the Frogs Day which coincided with Earth Day.

BSU has set up a very large frog pond to increase frog population. “The population of frogs in the Philippines has decreased because of pesticides that destroyed large tracts of frog habitat”, she stressed.

“It must be brought back by urging communities to care for the remaining frogs, maintain a clean environment and through the passage and implementation of strict frog conservation laws,” Villanueva hoped as many students exhibited several ways in saving the frogs through posters, essays, poems, slogans, video and graphic illustrations.

Saving the Frogs an Uphill Climb

“Many communities now realize they have to be a part of nature and not apart from it to exist today given all the diseases and ailments that are occurring,” Dr. Grace Taguba Bengwayan, the project advocate told this writer while observing the large crowd that participated in the International Save the Frogs Day.

“But it will be a long fight to bring back the once-plentiful frog population,” she lamented.

Dr. Bengwayan’s statement stems from another scientist’s discovery that not only frogs but all the amphibian population in the Philippines is on the verge of being wiped out.

Philippines’ amphibian specialist, Dr. Letecia Afuang, said the Philippine amphibian population have drastically gone down in the past twenty years.

Afuang, a professor at the University of the Philippines at Los Banos (UPLB) and in charge of the assessment of conservation status of Philippines amphibians said that there is a lack of awareness in the broader Filipino community of Philippines amphibians and their relevance, leading to the destruction of the creatures.

She noted with approval the efforts being launched by BSU and the communities around it in saving the frogs, but equally warned there is grave danger of an outbreak of diseases in other places in the Philippines where many amphibians and reptiles are becoming extinct.

This is because the population of disease-transmitting insects and vectors is increasing and spreading while their traditional predators are dwindling in number.

“As a result, mosquitoes, including the malaria-transmitting Anopheles and the deadly dengue-causing Aedes Aegypti, are multiplying in great numbers further endangering the health of thousands of not only Filipinos but Asians,” Afuang said.

The highly proactive Cordillera Ecological Center (CEC) based in the province on the other hand said through a statement released on April 30 celebrating Earth Day that the issue of Aedes egypti mosquito population increasing is due to global warming.

CEC stated “Dengue epidemics in the Philippines occur annually in the later half of the year following onset of rainfall and increasing temperature.  It becomes more pronounced on El Niño periods.”

“It is then important to have a moving average temperature (MAT) index yearly so that it becomes a signal or early warning device to the public  that dengue will not only be a possibility but  will be widespread in nature,” CEC explained.

The CEC won the World Bank Environmental Award earlier for being able to determine the onset and spread of dengue-carrying mosquitoes by studying temperature increases.

“The rise of temperature favors disease-carrying insects while equally threatening beneficial small wildlife like amphibians and reptiles that prey on insect pests. For instance, four frogs are now extinct in Benguet and in other parts of the country. Global warming and chemicals have destroyed their habitats,” CEC emphasized.

The Declining Amphibian Population Task Force (DAPTF) of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) supports CEC’s revelation, saying ionizing radiation of ultraviolet B resulting from ozone layer depletion has something to do with the decline of amphibian population.

The decline of amphibian population, while worldwide, is overly evident in the Philippines . IUCN named the Philippines as one of the world’s top twenty biodiversity hotspots because of numerous extinct and vanishing living species.

And if the frogs aren’t saved, they may just end up in the long list of IUCN’s Red Handbook.

In Defense of Trees

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In Defense of Trees

By Michael A. Bengwayan

Trees have no teeth.  That is the reason why most fall down in Indonesia, why pine stands drop dead and silent from loggers’ chainsaws in the Philippines, and why Himalayan larches crackle in fireplaces in energy-starved Nepal.

Trees have no teeth but have very quiet voices—which is distinct  disadvantage in a competitive world. Fortunately for them, we need them.  And we need them for reasons that man has always found persuasive.  We believe that without them, the atmosphere will choke up, the icecaps will melt, and before we can say reforestation, one of our most precious resources of renewable energy will have been lost.

That is at the root, so to speak.  Of man’s concern for the tree.  That is why forestry programs  are implemented and thousands of acres of trees planted from China to the hills of Scotland.

But there is more to trees than oxygen, carbon or chlorophyll.  A bird, a common house sparrow told me so.  So I say this tongue in cheek.

It happened when two very old two pine trees were felled by my neighbor, a policeman (armed with a tree cutting permit and nailed close to my fence for the purpose that I read it because I stopped all earlier attempts).  The trees have stood there forever and have been taken for granted as part of the scenery, greening our view to the forest every summer, pleasantly as kids romped over the grass in glee.

I went outside and stood as they cut the two trees.  There were six big guys with two chainsaws, the policeman and his family with two other burly fellows who also looked as cops, the barangay chairman with three of his kagawad and some neighbors.   They were all making sure that the two trees will fall down this time and I could not stop them.

The woodcutters discussed how to do the cutting, measured up the trees, paced out where they were to fall and decided how they would be dispatched. The victims, voiceless as I said, stood silent.

One of the men spidered into the canopy of the tree, deftly severed some limbs and attached a big nylon rope.  Two other men fitted a hand winch and attached it to the other tree.  The rope was snarled to life and was put to work  against a steel electric post.

The job was professionally executed, passively accepted by the onlookers and seemed somewhat slightly immoral, reminiscent of whaling where man’s superiority is so obscenely exploited..

It was all over in an hour.  The cutters and onlookers peering at me while the trees were being hacked  to death by roaring chainsaws and machetes.  All the burgeoning growth of long passed seasons—summer, rainy days—the travails of almost 100 years, so easily and swiftly brought to an end.

When the trees fell,  it echoed in the mountain and sent shock waves to the nearby pine forest, into the tiny glen painted by strawberry gardens, to the Longlong Elementary school where pupils lifted their heads and the hillside grass blades quivered.

My onlooking neighbors’’ faces were expressionless.  The policeman and his wife laughed  contentedly. The treecutters shouted to speed up their job.  And I stood silently.  Only the taut nylon rope seemed nervous.  The chainsaws on the ground purred after their kill.

At that moment,  I heard the house sparrows call, a distant mewing from the eaves of my house that sheltered them from rain.  House sparrows are not unusual on the perip[hery of rural life.  The treecutters and their audience did not hear the birds.  They were intent watching the limbs being cut from the tree trunks.  The men muttered how many board feet the trunk will make, from the time the seedling popped from the soil when the country was sold by the Spanish for a measly 15 million dollars, through the American occupation, one World War, man’s first visit to the moon,  and to this very day that I helped vote for a leader I hoped will stop once and for all, any tree cutting in the country.

As the treecutters sat over to chew momma before slicing the tree trunks into timber, I turned around towards the house sparrows’ cry.  The birds left their station, swung down in uncertain ellipses, nervously impelled and flew over where the fallen trees stood.  They swooped over, crying all the while in full sound, mellow and poignant.  They hovered for a minute, called eerily, swept down and upward from 10 feet from the ground .  And were gone.

Everything was still.  A message was sent.  Clear in that stillness of the morning.  I can play it over and over.  A message without words, enigmatic, difficult to construe or misconstrue.

Did they mourn for a loss of a nesting site?  Could it be idle curiosity?  Inquisitiveness?  My experience has no neat explanation within the comfortable parameters of human logic..

My indigenous being tells me the sparrows lifted the spirit of the pine trees on their broad soft wings and carry these to the forests of eternity beyond the horizon.

If birds can emphatize with a tree, how can man, the wisest of all creatures, can’t?

I returned to my house, choose two good pine saplings. I walked, half limped to where the tree cutters and their supporters stood. They gazed at me blankly. I went  near where the trees fell and  planted the two pine seedlings.

No one talked. No one moved.

I walked away.