oratorical piece (2011)
TRANSCRIPT
"Save Earth, Save Life: A Johnian's Advocacy"
Two hundred tons. TWO HUNDRED TONS!
Can you comprehend the enormity of 200 tons? That’s how much
garbage we collect in this city, every single day. Awesome, isn’t it?
Fellow Johnians I plead, saving the Earth to save lives demands we
account for our garbage. Evidence is clear and eerily familiar. The great
flood of Bacolod in December 2006, and Typhoon Ondoy in September
2009, offered proof beyond reasonable doubt that garbage recklessly
dumped and neglected in our waterways precipitated the deadly deluge.
Thousands of lives were interrupted. Millions of pesos worth of property
were obliterated.
The universal call to reduce, reuse, and recycle garbage is advocated
by Republic Act 9003, our country’s Solid Waste Management law. But 10
years after its signing, R.A. 9003 is far from fully enforced. Even now that
our city is finally building a sanitary landfill, I fear that our garbage problem
will linger, simply because government reneged on its duty to teach us how
to segregate waste, an obligation prescribed by law. Our ignorance will exact
a heavy price. Our ignorance will throw us right into the deathly path of
more and even mightier floods. Our ignorance will endure the unmitigated
build-up of methane gas until one day…BOOM!!! Let us not forget Glorietta
2. That was unmanaged methane gas. We want to save the Earth, we cannot
even save a shopping mall.
Our failure to segregate garbage will render the appeal to reuse and
recycle—pardon the pun—rubbish. Perhaps, this is the reason why, even
before we are called to reuse or recycle, we are urged to reduce. We are
urged to reduce consumption, for it is in over-consumption that waste
begins, and it is by the demand of over-consumption that more and more
products are manufactured, triggering more and more CO2 emission. More
than methane gas, the most widespread greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide.
CO2 is primarily responsible for global warming, a phenomenon with
perilous consequences. It melts polar ice caps, instigating catastrophic floods
in archipelagos, like the Philippines, and in low-lying coastal areas, like
southern Louisiana. Global warming heats the surface of oceans causing
colossal storms to brew. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the
surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico had in fact risen, but by a mere
two degrees Fahrenheit. In human terms, that rise in temperature is like the
shift from feeling fine to feeling feverish. Global warming brings on climate
change. Many of you have farms. You know exactly what that means: very
little rain in one year, too much rain the next. The increased occurrence of El
Niño and La Niña weather spells is staring us down, and our poor brothers
can only stare back with dazed eyes and empty stomachs, their crops
withered or washed away.
To our dismay, we cannot even rely on world leaders to solve global
warming. The Kyoto Protocol, originally adopted in Japan in 1997, was a
compact between industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 2012. On the eve of that deadline, commitments remain unmet.
Even worse, to feign compliance, the same industrialized countries moved
manufacturing to China. Most everything today is “Made in China”, and
because of this, China today ranks second only to America in CO2
emissions.
But can we, in all conscience, put blame solely on these countries?
Our penchant for imported brands constrains the shipping industry to emit
more CO2 into the atmosphere. And so, en route to your loving arms, that
luxurious Louis Vuitton bag from Paris released more CO2. So did those
Gucci loafers from Florence. Your Levi’s from China. Your Nike shoes
from Vietnam. Your D&G sunglasses, whether from Milan or Bangkok.
My fellow Johnians, within each of us lies the capacity to save the
Earth and save lives. Within each of us lies the discipline to reduce
consumption, to reuse and recycle, to minimize CO2 emission, to keep waste
to a minimum, so we may save the Earth and save lives.
(PUT ON ECO BAG). Let us wear our eco-bag like a badge of honor.
Henceforth, let us not be ashamed of it, let us not be bothered by it. Let us
carry it the way Jesus carried his cross, with the highest purpose, with
gallant sacrifice, with unbroken dignity.
Save Earth, save lives. Dear Lord, if this be the Johnian advocacy, I
implore you, let this be our legacy.