Pope John Paul II launched my writing career

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

(This piece came out on page 1 of the Inquirer in 1995 when Pope John Paul II visited the Philippines for the second time. Here is a shortened version to celebrate his beatification on May 1, 2011.)

WELL, AS they say, everyone has a story to tell. I have mine. And I might as well tell it too.

The first feature story I ever wrote in my life got me and the magazine editor in big trouble with the Marcos dictatorship. Six months later, on Feb. 21, 1981, Pope John Paul II handed me a rock trophy for what I wrote.

I was not even a journalist at that time. I was working with a church-related human rights organization. My background was clinical psychology and for some time my world was psychometrics and counseling, until I became a religious novice and metamorphosed into a human rights worker. That was when the writing began.

When the Pope came in 1981, I covered his visit for a news agency, and I was able to see the Pope up close. But it was during the closed-door Catholic Mass Media Awards ceremonies (held at the Radio Veritas auditorium) that I was able to come even closer.

I was covering the affair and had to dress formally because I was also a nominee. The Pope came in a helicopter. His address to communicators in Asia was aired live. Then the Pope disappeared for a while to meet with persons with leprosy. The Pope returned to the stage and the winners’ names were called.

I was not dumbstruck when I heard my name. Not that I was so sure of my writing. I just felt a very calm soothing feeling sweeping over me. It was like everything was in slow motion.

Former UP President Salvador P. Lopez and Bishop Justino Ortiz were onstage to assist His Holiness. I went up the stage and kissed the Pope’s hand. Then he handed me the trophy. I felt his hand tighten around my head. The Vatican photographer clicked twice.

What did this mean? What was God telling me? I asked myself. What was written on the plaque gave me goose bumps all over. “In recognition of outstanding achievement in interpretive reporting that dramatized the implication of government action which impinged upon the culture and survival of an ethnic community. Written with a depth of human understanding and a passion for the truth.” I wanted to sing the Magnificat.

The feature I wrote was on Macliing Dulag, now immortalized as a Cordillera great, the chief of the Butbut tribe, the slain Kalinga brave who opposed the Chico River Dam. (Last Sunday, April 24, 2011 was the 30th anniversary of his death.) Because of that story (with great photos that I took) my editor Letty J. Magsanoc and I were grilled separately by the defense department. A photo of myself being castigated before a panel of military men led by Defense Undersecretary Carmelo Barbero landed on the front page of the biggest newspaper then. Police reporter Ramon Tulfo covered the interrogation. I have a transcript of that interrogation.

I still have copies of the newspaper (July 1980) which had on its front page four photos—those of the Pope wiping tears away while meeting with lepers in Portugal, Imelda Marcos in Japan and Miss Philippines Chat Silayan winning third in an international beauty contest and myself. What company, I thought.

Anyway, a few weeks after the 1981 CMMA and the Pope’s visit, I received two big color photos of myself with the Pope. It came from the Vatican.

And the writing went on and on.

Things were never the same after that. I slowly became confident about writing. I wrote my second one—on the sex tours for the Japanese in Manila. The third feature got me in trouble again. This was on human rights violations committed by the military in Bataan. I was again grilled (for three hours) behind closed doors. I was also questioned about my story on the slain rebel priest Zacarias Agatep. That was not enough—the military slapped me with a P10-million libel suit.

In 1982, my house was ransacked by military men while I was out. They were searching for subversive materials but found none. My househelp told me that when the men found my photos with the Pope they said, “Aba, may sinasabi pala.” They did not take anything.

Fourteen years, some 300 feature stories, a movie and a book later (30 years today and more than a thousand articles), I still feel very unworthy to have been drawn into this profession.

If there is anything I want to do during this papal visit, it is to give a copy of my book to the Pope with a photo of ourselves together. To say, “You plunged me into this.” (I did send him a copy.)

My book “Journalists in Her Country” starts with my Macliing Dulag story and ends with an article titled, “Nobody Told Me It Would Be Like This.”

Your Holiness, nobody told me I’d be climbing mountains and bathing in freezing rivers. Nobody told me I’d be meeting with armed men and women who had spent away their youth in uncharted places. Nobody told me I’d be able to talk to the powerful and the mighty as well as to the poorest and most forgotten of the land. Nobody told me I’d have lunches, dinners and coffee with generals, politicians and movie stars; or that I’d be sleeping with prostitutes and embracing AIDS-stricken women. Nobody told me I’d have to track down members of a death squad and be breaking bread with them.

And doing the stories gave me great times—of terror and joy and sadness and fun.

I have not always agreed with everything the Pope has said. I am for women priests, he is not. I find the Church too patriarchal, its stance on population and family planning too narrow. I think the Pope should have been more understanding of priests who preach liberation theology.

But Pope John Paul II is an extraordinary human being who reached out and loved much and there is no arguing about his charisma and saintliness.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

A glimpse of Paradise Lost

Sunday Inquirer Magazine/FEATURES/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Filed Under: People, Environmental Issues, Natural Resources (general)

HE knew the wilderness and its many secrets. Each leaf, each stem, each trunk spoke to him in ways ordinary humans might not hear. He hearkened to them and gave them names. From under the huge canopy of green that was his second home, he would emerge, carrying with him evidence of rare and amazing life. He had glimpsed paradise. The world, he thought, needed to know about the treasures hidden in these endangered vastness.

But Filipino botanist Leonardo L. Co was gone before he could share this bounty. Killed by military forces in the wilds of Kananga, Southern Leyte on Nov. 15, 2010, he left a void crying out to be filled. Who will follow in his footsteps in forests primeval?

But his family, friends and colleagues are not frozen in mourning. If they cannot totally fill Leonard’s mountain shoes, they are at least attempting to take the path less-traveled that the botanist had trod for many years. They, too, are heeding the call of the wild, embracing a world that the consummate scientist and lover of plants had considered as the place to be.

That was how it was in the days that ran up to Easter and Earth Day this year. To celebrate the botanist’s life, a Leonardo Co Trail was opened somewhere in the Sierra Madre mountain range bordering Palanan, Isabela. Going to Palanan alone takes some guts, as it is on the remote “other side” of Luzon, separated by awesome mountains and the so-called Last Great Forest.

Weeks before, an advance reconnaissance team (see photo) composed of University of the Philippines (UP) Mountaineers and their Dumagat guides prepared the way for the “Palanan Co Sierra Madre Trek” that was to follow during Holy Week, starting April 15.

Here’s a recon team member’s message sent by satellite phone: “5 days of trekking, 4 soaking wet nights, 30 mins of sunshine, 15 squares of canned sardines, 2 river eels, 7 leech bites, 3 foot blisters, more than a dozen river cross, countless slips and slides, and to top it all off, 4 very awesome Dumagats and 6 funny mountaineer friends, makes for 1 great and unforgettable experience, all for 1 very special botanist. And the best part is, we’re only halfway there.”

That was where this “1 very special botanist” had wished some of his ashes would be strewn. By now, Leonard’s wishes will have been fulfilled. His resting place: his “field lab,” the 16-hectare Forest Dynamics Plot in Palanan, begun in 1994 and of which Leonard was co-investigator (with Drs. Perry Ong and Daniel Lagunzad). In this area, some 335 species of plants have been identified. A trail was opened and named after him. (The other existing trails are the Aguinaldo, Carabao and Bisag Trails.) Some 30 mountaineers, friends and family members braved the wilds to honor him. Darwin Flores was trek organizer while veteran explorer-mountaineer and artist-teacher Bobby Acosta was trek leader. ROX Outdoor Gear was the main sponsor.

A third of Leonard’s ashes is with his family, the other third has been spread around his favorite Dita tree in UP. Said Glenda, his wife of 20 years, “He had chosen that tree and even brought our daughter Linnaea to see it.”

It takes a special woman to be a wife to Leonard whose romance with plants is not a secret. Leonard named his only child, now nine, after a plant that flowers in the North Pole and after Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, father of modern taxonomy.

Leonard so loved what he was doing that he did not think much about looks or how he projected himself. He was the stereotypical nerd, agreed his wife, a very dedicated and engaging teacher. There is one photo that always makes Glen/da laugh. It shows Leonard lecturing in class with his fly open. It was said that he would get so carried away and wax poetic, students in front had to put up with saliva spray.

Leonard was a serious ethno-botanist and plant taxonomist who spent much time in the wilds. Pharmacology, a science that draws much from botany, was one of his fields of interest and expertise. He was also a trained acupuncturist. He knew several languages – Latin, French and German – besides his everyday Filipino, English and Chinese. An advocate of indigenous health practices, he worked with folk healers, shamans and mumbakis. Among his written works was “Common Medicinal Plants of the Cordillera Administrative Region,” an invaluable reference for upland community-based health workers. He also authored “The Forest Trees of Palanan, Philippines: A Study in Population Ecology.”

Many international and local environmental groups recognized and availed themselves of Leonard’s expertise. Among them was Conservation International, for which he worked as a consultant in the monitoring of biodiversity in several Philippine forests. He also supported environmental and health NGOs and participated in the government’s conservation efforts.

As a photographer, Leonard had a special eye for plants and other wildlife. Brother-in-law Darwin Flores said he went over never-before-seen shots in the memory card of Leonard’s camera and noticed images that didn’t seem to mean anything. There seemed to be only dry brown leaves and twigs, but upon closer scrutiny, one saw a small brown frog in camouflage. An insect, a snake, a bird disguised as twigs, leaves, and flowers.

But it was while identifying, naming and photographing rare native plants that Leonard was truly in his element. And oh, how he loved ferns. Not so much orchids, he could have told you. He lamented the disappearance of a rare endemic fern discovered for the first time by noted botanist Hermes Gutierrez (father of actress Chin-chin). Ever in search of rare species, Leonard scoured the forest floor and canopy, forged rivers and climbed mountains, carrying the ubiquitous cutting pole used for reaching plants in high places. He would be away for long stretches, six months sometimes, before he’d head for home. But he sure was blessed with many eureka moments up there.

A UP Mountaineer, Leonard was always behind the pack during treks because he picked plants along the way. He was recently given the posthumous UP Mountaineer of the Year Award.

Leonard considered his mountain forays as the convergence of science and outdoor adventure. It was not all about conquering the mountain peak or going from A to B. For him it was about the journey. He would say, “Ang tuktok ng bundok, bonus na lang yun.” (Reaching the top is just a bonus.)

Leonard’s death shocked the academe, the scientific community, environmentalists and health advocates. When Leonard, 56, was felled by bullets, along with his two guides Sofronio Cortez and Julius Borromeo, he was doing research for a reforestation project and was, witnesses attested, within the supposedly safe perimeter of the Energy Development Corporation research area, where armed groups weren’t supposed to be. Leonard took four bullets in the back and in the leg. Two other companions survived to tell the story. Initial reports said Leonard’s group was caught in the crossfire between the military and the communist rebels. But, as it turned out, there was no encounter. Even the local police said there was none. A case against the military is now pending.

Leonard left behind much work in progress and dreams for this planet. Many have vowed to continue what he had begun, like the Philippine Native Plants Conservation Society Inc. (PNPCSI) which Leonard founded in 2007. New PNPCSI president Anthony Arbias is making sure that the PNPCSI would be Leonard’s enduring legacy. It was their love for ferns that brought these two men together. Leonard also liked to study grass, Arbias recounted, and sometimes during trips he would yell, “Para!” (Stop!) just to get his hands on “rare grass ng Pilipinas.” One of Leonard’s regular companions was forester and UP bio-researcher Boni Pasion, whom he mentored. Pasion spent three months with Leonard in Palanan before the Leyte project where Leonard was killed.

PNPCSI has been given space at the Ninoy Aquino Wildlife Park in Quezon City. It’s an x-deal, Arbias said, for inventory work on plants in the 22-hectare compound which Leonard accepted with the ulterior motive of establishing an honest-to-goodness botanical park there. “A template for the regions,” Arbias stressed.

“Leonard was very much against the selling of areas of vegetation and turning them into real estate,” Arbias said. He was also against the use of exotic species for monoculture reforestation, like the use of mahogany, an exotic South American tree that was slowly replacing narra, the Philippines’ national tree. Leonard sarcastically called mahogany the “bagong pambansang puno” (the new national tree).

Born on Dec. 29, 1953 in Manila, Leonard was the eldest and only boy in the brood of Lian Sing Co and Emelina Legaspi. His father was a first-generation immigrant from China. Leonard went to the Philippine Chinese High School and excelled in science. He entered UP in 1972 but finished his botany degree only in 2008 because, his wife Glenda explained, “he forgot Physics.” Not having a diploma for a long time did not deter him from acquiring more knowledge and sharing them with young budding scientists.

In her article “Leonard Co: Bringing Knowledge of the Forests to the People” (Feedback, publication of Center for Environmental Concerns, Sept.-Dec. 2010) Lisa Ito-Tapang wrote: “Yet this delay in attaining complete academic credentials never deterred him from becoming one of the major experts in this field.” From 1977 to 2009, she wrote, Leonard co-authored six books and 13 articles in peer-reviewed publications, including researches on the Rafflesia aurantia (Rafflesiaceae), vaccimium (Ericeae), Xanthostemon fruticosus (Myrtaceaea) and Philippine ferns.

Leonard’s colleagues named two species – mycaranthes leonardi and rafflesia leonardi –after him. Not that he wished for this. He was credited with discovering eight new species of plants, and named one of them after business tycoon Oscar Lopez, who was said to be delighted.

Despite the serious nature of his work, Leonard knew how to relax in the company of like-minded friends. One of their favorite hang-outs was Green Daisy in Diliman, a small private garden hideaway under a bower of vines and branches. (It is owned by organic farming practitioner and entrepreneur Daisy Langenegger.) Leonard loved to show his culinary skills by cooking Chinese dishes for friends. A TV series he loved watching with his kid was GMA-7’s “Bantatay,” which was about a dog into whom the spirit of a slain veterinarian entered so he could protect his bereaved family.

“I would like to come back as a butterfly,” he would tell Linnaea. Indeed, wife Glenda said, there was a hovering butterfly after his death, prompting Linnaea to ask, “Nasaktan kaya siya?” (Did he feel pain?)

In his Facebook page Leonard lists as among his interests Bahay Tsinoy Museum (Kaisa), Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation, International Year of Biodiversity 2010, Philippine Native Plants Conservation Society and Marikina Watershed Initiative. His FB photo shows him sorting out leaves, captioned “Botany work by candlelight in our field camp on Mt. Cetaceo, the highest point in the Cagayan segment of the Sierra Madre Mtns.”

A lot has been said and written about Leonardo L. Co, botanist, and the immeasurable loss. PNPCSI’s statement could barely sum up the treasure that he was: “Few can realize the herculean task that Leonard Co set out to undertake. He spent a lifetime exploring and gathering precious data on the rapidly diminishing forested regions of the country. No one understood our native forest dynamics the way that he did. He provided a glimpse into its hidden order and where one would see just endless green, he would expound on the complex interrelationships between one living thing and another. He possessed first-hand knowledge that can never be found in any literature.”

His brother-in-law Darwin Flores offers some consolation: “Even in his last hours, he was in paradise.” •

An Ofw's Via Crucis

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Filed Under: Overseas Employment, Religion & Belief

THIS HOLY Week, put aside the good old devotional prayers and walk the road to Calvary via the path of the overseas Filipino workers. Carry their burden, wear their crown of thorns, drink from their empty cups, feel the stripes on their backs and the fever on their brows. Broil in the desert sand, be tossed at sea, descend to the pit of their loneliness.

Most of all, let us enter the cave of their hearts.

For many Filipinos, the way to jobs overseas has been a road to Golgotha. Into the valley of death many have been led, into lives of misery and shame not a few have been lured.

With them, we cry, de profundis, ahhh, Father, have you forsaken us? How have we come to this?

                                                              +++

We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee. Because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.

First Station: Jesus is condemned to death. A poor Filipino sells properties, borrows money at high interest rates so he can go abroad and be employed. Even before he leaves, his family is already deep in debt.

Second Station: Jesus carries His cross. The labor recruiter exacts a high fee, but the poor worker has no choice. The OFW-to-be leaves, carrying with him the burden of his family’s debts. How long will he slave away in loneliness in a foreign land so his family can live a better life? Will he come home to find his family intact?

Third Station: Jesus falls the first time. The poor Filipino farm girl arrives in a foreign land and is soon snatched by her strange employer, then taken to a home where she finds herself alone and with no one to share her burdens. Held a virtual prisoner, and having little contact with the outside world, she imagines the worst that can happen to her. She is despondent.

Fourth Station: Jesus meets His mother. Filipino maids in Hong Kong gather on their Sundays-off to share with one another their experiences and to find links and solace from compatriots in a strange land. In the Middle East, maids have no regular way of getting in touch with other Filipinos.

Fifth Station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry His cross. Filipinos help other Filipinos who are victims of abuse. The Philippine embassies are supposed to be places of refuge, but many OFWs feel some of these embassies cannot be relied upon for succor. They cry, where are you when we need you?

Sixth Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus. Non-government organizations, religious groups and women’s crisis centers here and abroad come to the rescue of OFWs in distress. They provide havens, oases for battered Filipinos, and help them to go home safely.

Seventh Station: Jesus falls the second time. A seaman finds out too late that the salary he will receive from his employer is much lower than what is specified in the contract. Somewhere in the high seas pirates hold them hostage.

Eighth Station: Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem. Women OFWs come to the aid of other women. They help a runaway maid with burned hands and face. The maid tells a horrible story of constant battering. She becomes insane and is shipped home without money and sanity.

Ninth Station: Jesus falls the third time. An OFW falls ill or is injured in an accident. He finds himself helpless and with no health benefits. He is sent home. A dancer in Japan finds herself prostituted and held as a sex slave. A woman kills her employer and faces a death sentence.

Tenth Station: Jesus is stripped of His garments. An OFW is arrested for the crime of drug trafficking. Guilty or not, he finds himself stripped of his rights. He has no counsel, he has no visitors, he is alone languishing in a foreign prison.

Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed on the cross. A maid is pinned to the bed by her male employer and raped repeatedly. She becomes pregnant and is sent home. She delivers her baby aboard an airplane and is hounded by the media upon her arrival.

Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the cross. An OFW is accused of crime he swears he did not commit. He is detained, tried, convicted and sentenced to die by beheading. He dies alone, unmourned and away from home.

Thirteenth Station: Jesus is taken down from the cross. A Filipino domestic worker in a foreign land jumps from the window of an apartment building to escape the brutality of her employers.

Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in His tomb. A dead Filipino is brought home in a box. His family does not know how he died, why he died. An autopsy is performed and tell-tale signs of torture are found on his body. His wife and children are deep in debt, with no one to turn to for deliverance.

Let us weep. Let us pray. Let us rise.

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In this Sunday’s Easter issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, read my feature story on slain botanist Leonardo Co and his legacy to conserve Philippine native plants. As you read this, some 30 mountaineers, friends, colleagues and members of Co’s family are in the Sierra Madre mountain range near Palanan, Isabela to celebrate Earth Day and open the Leonardo Co Trail in what is known as the Philippines’ Last Great Forest. Co’s ashes will be strewn in the awesome wilderness that he so loved. Indeed, he is home again.

Earth Day greetings to you all. Wishing you a wondrous, shimmering Easter. Alleluia, Christ is risen, alleluia.

Send feedback to cerespd@gmail.com or www.ceresdoyo.com

Cashing in on poverty

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Filed Under: Poverty, Entertainment (general), Television, child abuse, Crime

CAN WE really believe, as we are made to believe, that the live TV shows that draw in the poor and feature the poor for entertainment purposes in exchange for easy money were conceived with altruistic motives and not for huge profits?

In the wake of the recent furor over the “Willing Willie” TV show that featured what looked like a discombobulated six-year-old boy gyrating like a macho dancer and other similar display of abilities (by toothless senior citizens, for example) in exchange for monetary rewards, poverty is always invoked as the reason why.

Today, live shows featuring kids are not anything like the highly rated “Kids Say the Darndest Things” of yesteryears.

Poverty is supposed to be the reason shows like “Willing Willie” on TV5 and its predecessor “Wowowee” on ABS-CBN’s Channel 2 (before the debacle that caused host Willie Revillame to leave and move to TV5) exist. Poverty is the reason legions of poor people aspire to participate in game shows and entertain the audience with all sorts of antics that no one in his or her right mind would want their bedraggled or aging parents to do on television.

Poverty or profit?

Poverty is what Revillame invoked when he justified the format of his show. You, he lashed out at his critics, what have you done for the poor? Oh, the many things he had done for the poor, the multi-millionaire show host said, and his legion of fans that stand by him is proof of this. What indignities are his critics talking about, his supporters ask, what oppression, what human rights violations? The poor, they say, love the show. They dream to participate and go home with oodles of money—for a song, a dance, a “wrong mistake” that sends the audience laughing at their expense.

Right after the 2006 “Wowowee” anniversary stampede that killed more than 70 people, Revillame was quoted as saying, “Gusto lang naming sila mapasaya.” (All we wanted was to make them happy.) And so the poor innocents who were there for the thrill met their tragic end.

“I saw something very wrong, very, very wrong,” Chief Supt. Querol said then, his voice almost cracking, after he saw people stepping over the dead and clamoring for raffle tickets.

Watching the fact-finding investigation at that time, I couldn’t help noting that the line of questioning focused mainly on where, when and how the tragedy happened, the security lapses, the physical layout of the place, the numbers. It was all about crowd control. No one asked about the essence of the “Wowowee” show, its purpose, sponsors, audience. Did the show producers even remotely realize that the show was playing Pied Pier and might be leading innocents to a tragic end? For the investigators it seemed enough that they knew that it was some kind of daily game show that raffled off huge prizes in cash and in kind.

I had hoped then that if a Senate hearing was going to be conducted “in aid of legislation,” the parties concerned would look into the nature of TV shows. Not to curtail media freedom, but so that the interest of viewers and the participating public would be protected. Not just from physical dangers but from the non-physical too.

Were lessons learned?

For TV networks it continues to be a ratings game, a crowd-drawing game, with the crowd size, queue length and shrieking decibel used as gauge of a live show’s popularity, the better for advertisers to notice. And who would compose the crowd if not the masa? They who have simple dreams and simple joys, they who seek momentary relief from life’s travails, they who are so easy to reward and satisfy.

But in the case of both that 2006 stampede and now—of the boy macho dancer, that is—must poverty always be the scapegoat? Must poverty be always invoked to explain tragedies, justify indignities and crimes (like drug trafficking that recently sent three Filipino drug mules to the death chamber). It’s as if the poor have nothing else except their hunger and their need for money. To underestimate the poor is to sin against the poor. To make huge sums of money on the poor while making them salivate for it—in the name of entertainment—is to gravely sin against the poor.

I happened to catch the latter portion of Revillame’s soliloquy last Friday and his announcement that his show would be off the air for some time. He ranted against his critics, those in show biz especially. But he did welcome constructive suggestions.

Then he should listen! If only he would read through what have been written and said, no matter how painful and insulting these sound to him, he might find some sensible nuggets.

To show producers who claim to be so eager to help the poor: Why don’t you just hand over the money, why subject the participants to something that diminishes their dignity? Or why not reward the poor’s little known heroic feats in their communities and set them up as models? This way more poor people would emulate the good stuff instead of just pinning their hopes on shows that distribute money.

Revillame asks: Why target him only? Yeah, what about other live shows that make kids do erotic movements, kids who are treated like elephants in a circus?

Last Monday I was having my car registered and waiting for the LTO lunch break to be over when I saw from the corner of my eye, a TV noon show that featured young women clad in the skimpiest bikinis gyrating and grinding in a crowded urban alley.

I thought, what woman in her right senses, no matter how poor, would want to cavort almost naked on a crowded street, under the noonday sun? And why are advertisers supporting this? Can’t they help women earn in a more decent way? Why seek to degrade and diminish?

Again, poverty?

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Copyright 2011

Toxic sea: NIMBY

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

Filed Under: Disasters (general), Advice, Nuclear accident, Safety of Citizens

ALARMISTS AND doomsday soothsayers are abroad in the land in the aftermath of the disaster several weeks ago that devastated Japan, considered the most disaster-prepared country in the world. Many of us are wont to say: Think how we would all be had the triple whammy happened in our disaster-prone country where disaster preparedness is way behind other countries. Only after “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” in 2009 and the tragedy in Japan did we begin to be personally prepared, that is, right in our own homes and small communities. National is another story.

I am talking about ordinary citizens having “I am ready” bags and emergency kits in their homes and cars. I have mine. I even have a reflectorized net vest in shocking green, which I hope I will not have to use at all. I was an outstanding Girl Scout in my youth, by the way, and I still live by the GS motto, “Be prepared,” and the GS slogan, “Do a good turn daily.” I should not be shy to broadcast this.

What worries many people now is the aftereffect of the damage in the nuclear plants in Fukushima and the radioactivity that could reach distant places. Japan, a news report said the other day, is going to release toxic water into the sea. “Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) will release almost 11,500 tons of water contaminated with low levels of radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, as workers struggled to contain the increasing amounts of dangerous runoff resulting from efforts to cool the plant’s damaged reactor.”

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano, the top government spokesperson, told reporters in a televised press conference, “We have no choice but to release water tainted with radioactive materials into the ocean as a safety measure.” Tepco has been pumping tons of water into the four reactors at Fukushisma in order to prevent a meltdown, and this water has become radioactive. And to free up space, this “seriously radioactive” water has to be released into the sea. An additional 1,500 tons of radioactive water will also be released from two reactors.

This radioactive water will go into the Pacific Ocean which Japan shares with the Philippines, several Asian countries and even the United States.

The first thing that comes to mind is, what happens to our food that comes from the sea? What are the health hazards? And what about tourism and tourists who are lured by our Pacific sand, sea and skies?

There are many differing views on the impact of dumping radioactive water into the ocean. Which should one believe? One thing is for sure: Many people are worried.

Are the oceans wide enough to take in all that radioactivity? There are those who say that releasing radioactive water into the ocean will not have a significant effect on marine life. One website quoted experts saying that “radioactive doses in seafood may turn out to be detectable but probably won’t be a significant health hazard. They’d probably be less of a concern than what people could get from land-based sources like drinking water or eating produce ...”

But Damon Moglen, director of the Climate and Energy Project at Friends of the Earth, is adamant: “Dumping this nuclear waste directly into the Pacific is dangerous and unacceptable. It’s incredible that while an international treaty forbids the dumping of even a barrel of this nuclear waste from a ship, Japan intends to send thousands of tons of that waste into the ocean. This dumping poses a direct threat to humans and the environment, and fisheries and industries depending on a clean Pacific could be devastated.”

Friends of the Earth noted that Japan is a signatory to the London Convention, which forbids countries from dumping nuclear waste at sea. But, under a loophole in that treaty, nuclear waste can be released from land-based sources. Ah, so. The Japanese government and Tepco appear poised to use that loophole to pump the 11,500 tons of waste from the shore at Fukushima into the ocean. This waste cannot legally be dumped from a ship at sea. From land is okay?

While the world reaches out to Japan and mourns its dead, now comes an issue of high concern that could dilute compassion toward the Japanese. Japan could now look like an underdog begging the world’s understanding, or like a harmful entity that should be duly warned not to spread harm to its neighbors who care. Would it be cruel to say to Japan, “We commiserate with you, but keep the contagion to yourself. We cannot be made to share this burden.”

If it were the earthquake and tsunami alone, there would be no problem about nations sharing the burden (in different degrees of capability, of course), but to share in the radioactive contamination is another story. Countries which share an ocean with Japan would not want to put themselves in harm’s way. Japan’s dumping of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean would constitute a deliberate act of harming its neighbors, like deliberately releasing radioactive mist into the sky which the wind will blow in all directions.

And so NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) applies.

I think of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo “world-class” eruption that darkened much of the world’s skies and even caused some global climate changes. A natural valve that happened to be in the Philippines acted up and suddenly all of us Earth creatures became citizens of one planet. We Filipinos, by our lonesome, took all that volcanic fallout and its effects that lasted for years. We did not build Mount Pinatubo.

On Wednesday the Senate held a hearing on radiation risks. It is wise to heed the experts.

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