I JUST THOUGHT (Part 1)
An Environmental and Political Thought
An Environmental and Political Thought
May 8, 2010 On my way from Cagayan de Oro to Butuan
I rode a van packed with at least 14 people upon going to Butuan. The van don't have aircon so I had to endure the heat of the four-hour travel. Blame me. I felt lazy to go traveling that day. The scorching heat made me stayed longer inside the rented house in CDO alongside with the fact that I won't be able to go online if I'll be at home until Monday. So, I ended up hurrying into the Agora Bus Terminal at already 1 in the afternoon. There, the queue was already unbelievable and the sun was hotter than ever, that I don't wanna imagine myself being there for at least 3 minutes. Thinking wise, I crossed the other side of the terminal and found a van bound to Gingoog. Luckily, I was the last passenger for the larga-puno-van to go. <"Larga-puno" (adj.) A local term used for public vehicles who do not follow any scheduled time of departure; if the vehicle is full (at their own definition of full), they'd go; in any case that you're in a hurry and would want the vehicle to go even if there weren't enough passengers, then you'd pay for the vacant seats for it to go>.
Beside me was a woman of around in her early thirties and along with her was her daughter of around four or six. The girl felt hungry, so she called up her mom and asked for something to eat. The mother scoured in her bag and gave a 30-gram packed of Skyflakes to her daughter. The girl munched the crackers and she glanced at me once in a while. I smiled back at her. When the girl almost finished up the biscuit, she took the bits of biscuit from the plastic wrapper into her hand. She then crumpled the wrapper and gave it to her mother. The mother almost instantly opened the van's window even wider and threw the plastic nonbiodegradable Skyflakes wrapper out of the vehicle's window, carried out by wind, and would surely end up in the street. I JUST THOUGHT, how could a mother of sane mind do this if mothers are supposed to set good examples for their children? I am not overreacting, am I? I mean we're fighting for our own existence here because of GLOBAL WARMING and ENERGY CRISIS, we even turned off our lights during EARTH HOURS and here's a mother littering in front of her child. I just thought how many mothers has done that, that same day, in the whole world, how many tons of Skyflakes wrappers or if not, junk food wrappers and juice tetra packs that would end up in the streets and would take years to decompose? If we clamor for change, let's start from ourselves. If you are mother and setting a good example to your children isn't enough, then try to be the BEST example for them. Mommy friends, instead of Happy Mother's Day, Happy BEST-example-to-your-children Day! :)
An hour later, after I have gotten over my disgust with the littering mother while I felt asleep, the road came very unbearable. And there right outside the vehicle window was a very terrible corruption site. The road from Balingasag, Misamis Oriental to Gingoog were jackhammer-ed holes and huge construction equipments were deserted along the highways. These public roads were fully concrete and, well, if not for some asphalt-filled holes, they are satisfactorily functional the last time I passed through here about weeks ago. I wondered why dug and redo it when it was okay all the while? And then I JUST THOUGHT, could these highway projects been a cover for corruption for this coming elections? I was wondering why construction projects usually increase during election season. Remember the "RE"construction they've made along that streets from Lourdes to that intersection in Velez.
Now, I'll ask you, how many roads were redone this past election? How many roads are still not yet done until now? Would you believe that there still Filipinos who haven't seen any concrete road in their entire life in most remote areas? 
Come to think of it; I just thought of it.
17 May, 2010 10:57:50 PM edited
Siargao Island
