Kim’s Dream Orlan Ravanera
PAANO BAGUHIN ANG WASAK NA MUNDO?
The truism that indeed we are now living in a broken world has dawned upon us which is reinforced by thousands of concerned scientists worldwide, setting the “doomsday clock” to just “one minute before midnight,” meaning that the earth is now falling into the precipice of its 6th extinction. No less than the Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao whose amazing culture zeroes-in on their interconnectedness and oneness with nature have expressed their compassion through a song which is now reverberating in the hinterlands, composed by no less than a chieftain named Edward Lihayan known as Datu Makabugwas. The amazing Datu Makabugwas, have recently composed a song called, “WASAK NA MUNDO.” Through the environmental theme of the song, it can be gleaned that in fact, the Indigenous Peoples may be primitive but they are spiritually advanced as they live in oneness with nature. Hearing the song and understanding the gist of the lyrics will manifest such truism:
Datu Makabugwas
“Ang kalikasan ay tumutukoy sa mga bagay, na nilalang at di
buhay na bagay. Tulad ng Bundok at iba pang anyong tubig o lupa
na kailangan ng tao.
Tayo ay di uunlad sa isang wasak na mundo, tubig at baha hindi
mapipigilan sa iyong pang-aabuso. Ang tao mismo ang kadahilanan
sa pagkawasak ng mundo. Ating alagaan at pausbungin ang ating
kalikasan.
Minsan di ko maintindihan, ang kasakiman ng tao naging mitsa sa
pagwasak ng mundo. Lason sa ilog, pagputol ng mga kahoy,
kadahilanan sa pagkawala ng kabuhayan ng tao.”
There are no borders against the crises facing humanity when the homo sapiens will perish out of a nuclear war or through environmental catastrophe, as everyone will be negatively affected, perhaps even those living in Mars. These occupants in nearby planets, if there are any, may be so bothered now on what’s happening in our planet facing these existential problems. In the sixties, concerned scientists had described the earth as “six minutes before midnight,” then moved to “two minutes before midnight” in the nineties as war was intensifying. Today, thousands of concerned scientists worldwide have now moved the doomsday clock to only “one minute before midnight,” because of the worsening crisis brought about by climate change. Indeed, humanity is now in the precipice of its 6th extinction. Despite such painful truism, it is paradoxical that the earthlings, especially the Filipinos seem not to care. Perhaps, we Filipinos are blind on the gravity of the problems – thus, this article. First on the threats of a nuclear war.
As narrated by the number one intellectual in the world, human right defender and social activist, Dr. Noam Chomsky, “nuclear war has come unpleasantly close many times since 1945. There are literally dozens of occasions in which there was a significant threat of nuclear war. There was a time in 1962 when it was very close, and furthermore, it’s not just the United States, India and Pakistan have come close to nuclear war several times and the issues remain. Both India and Pakistan are expanding their nuclear arsenals with US support. These are serious possibilities involved with Iran – not Iranian nuclear weapons, but just attacking Iran – and other thing can go wrong especially what’s happening now in Ukrain as Vladimir Putin Russia’s leader has warned the US that they are not afraid to go to nuclear war. It’s a very tense system, always has been.
There are plenty of times when automated systems in the United States – and in Russia, it’s probably worse – have warned of a nuclear attack which would set off an automatic response except that human intervention happened to take place and sometimes in a matter of minutes.” Well, thanks God no nuclear war happened, otherwise, the Philippines being a neo-colony of modern-day American Imperialism equipped with nuclear armaments, could have been the focus of nuclear missiles attack, our country being the first line of US defense in Asia then until now. How about environmental catastrophe?
This is apparently the major one crisis now, the anthropogenic climate change – the human contribution to global warming, greenhouse gases, the melting of the iceberg, the rising of the oceans, the extinction of billions of species, but that is just a part of it. There are other sources of what is called pollution, the destruction of the environment – that are quite serious: erosion, the elimination of agricultural lands especially here in Mindanao where some 200,000 hectares of the choicest of lands have been transformed into massive plantations with the massive use of toxic chemicals that have already contaminated our watersheds causing cancer and deformities of new born babies. Thus, it is not just environmental problems but human problems as well which have severe effects on hunger and malnutrition. In fact, based on the Study of the Food & Nutrition Institute, 85% of the Filipino children are malnourished.
In the Philippines, we have already lost the 17 million hectares of dipterocarp forest, putting to extinction millions of species of flora and fauna that have been living in the forest ecosystems for millions, if not billions, of years. Of the 13 major bays in the country, 10 are already biologically dead, to the detriment of our coastal communities with thousands of fishing families now living in hunger and extreme poverty. Mindanao has also become the focus of massive illegal mining as it is in this second biggest island in the country where some 72 kinds of top-quality minerals are found. But we have not just lost our ecological security through the massive destruction of our ecosystems. Worst is the presence of 6 coal-fired power plants in Mindanao done by the oligarchs in cohort with neo-liberal capitalists which took advantage of the passive and apathetic attitude of the Filipinos. We must know now that “burning coal is the leading cause of smog, acid rain and global warming,” the Union of Concerned Scientists said. That “in an average year, a typical coal plant generates 3,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the primary human cause of global warming, as much carbon dioxides as cutting down 161 million of trees, 10,000 tons of sulfur oxide which causes acid rain that damages forest, lakes and buildings, and forms small airborne particles that can penetrate deep into lungs; and 500 tons of small airborne particles, which can cause chronic bronchitis, aggravated asthma and premature death, and so many toxic chemicals such as 225 pounds arsenic which will cause cancer.”
These worsening crises faced by a broken world has been aggravated by gross social inequities, social injustices and contemporaneous economic paradigm called corporate globalization that has sacrificed Mother Earth and the people to the altar of greed and profit. It is so paradoxical that in the so-called abundant world, one billion people mostly in Asia are living in extreme poverty and hunger while another billion people are just subsisting on an income of two dollars per day. The less than one thousand corporations in the world are now the “Masters of Mankind,” who are the principal Architects of government policies and treating war as the “health of the nation.” A global movement called “Occupy” that began in the United States in 2011 is now protesting the Modern-Day American Imperialism promoting corporate globalization is the culprit. The Indigenous Peoples globally are now protesting as they have become impoverished through the massive grabbing of their ancestral domain.
Indeed, ecological problems are human problems that are causing so much hunger and extreme poverty to our people. Soon, famine will hit our country and only then that the Filipino people will be awakened to the fallacies of life. As declared by known spiritual leaders, “It is not a question of believing religious doctrines. It is about interpreting into our lives insights and practices that will not only help us to meet today’s challenges but change our hearts and minds.” Be enlightened that ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE IS ANTHROPOGENIC (man-made), perpetuated by the ego (devil) through corporate globalization, sacrificing nature to the altar of greed and profit. We must now become a countervailing force against environmental catastrophe and against nuclear war. That is our mission. As CONSCIOUSNESS, we are one with life, feel that oneness, the serenity and sacredness of nature and the vast spaciousness to be liberated from the fallacies of life and the capriciousness of the mundane. Only then that it will dawn upon all of us who truly we are and relate to the Unseen, Formless Being, the Creator as protecting God’s vanishing creation is the highest form of worship as creation is the reflection of the Creator! The theme of the song touched our hearts to regain back our sacred nature back to life as expressed by Datu Makabugwas. Only can we become a countervailing to save GAIA from ‘WASAK NA MUNDO.” To Datu Makabugwas, for composing an amazing song to save Mother Earth from satanic greed, our firm salute and warm embrace for awakening the people from the fallacies of life.
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