LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza
The dream of Martin Luther King Jr.

BAGUIO CITY – When I first read the name, I wondered where it originated. But what’s in a name? And so, as the practice in the household has been started a long time ago, I named our new dog “Obama.”

Earlier, two short-legged mongrels were baptized “Bush” and “Gloria.” The male one seems blind as it does not quickly recognize its keepers. I doubt if it keeps in his memory the individual smell of the people around as it attacks anybody, friend or foe.

Gloria is a tamed one. It does not go around biting anybody but it really is a true mongrel bitch that every askal in the neighborhood drop by and visit when it is in heat.

But the more popular Obama we all know is one who changed American history last Tuesday. Barack Hussein Obama, the first African-American to be elected President of the United States will sit as the 44th President of the USA . He is the first candidate from Hawaii to be elected as US President.

People from around the seven continents who stayed up late to watch the results of the polls struggled to comprehend how and why Obama won. The youth interviewed by an international media outfit say Obama’s victory is “victory for America and the world.”

In France , Britain , Iraq and Israel , and even in Manila , emotional Barack fans said prayers of thanks even as they too were speechless when asked about how the new President would “change” their lives.

A youthful by-stander in a Hong Kong bar quipped: Obama’s win is also for “anyone else in the world who is tired of Bush.” But the sentiment of many say that Obama’s win is the “end of racism and the beginning of true justice and equality – not for America alone but all over where races of different colors co-exist.”

A teacher in American History in Japan told a news anchor the US elections reflect statements made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I have a dream” speech that he delivered in front of 250,000 civil rights marchers on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC during the March for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963.

Part of his speech goes: “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual – Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Wanting to participate in voting and unconditionally be part of the American society has been a dream for Black Americans since the 1800s. The unidentified college professor concluded that the US presidential election spelled victory in Dr. King’s fight for civil rights recently won in Obama’s presidential dream.

Barack finished what a King has started.


“Keep your garbage in your own backyard.” This seems to be the message being imparted by a number of our councilors, contrary to the proposal of Benguet Corp. to offer the abandoned Antamok open-pit mine as a sanitary landfill for Baguio City.

In a recent conversation with Councilor Nick Aliping Jr, he did not say that BC’s proposal and the other land offers outside the city are not okay but that the “social acceptability of the project is uncertain.”

Considering the volatile character of an already offended community around the former Antamok open-pit mine, Councilor Aliping has a point. While BC’s offer may be good, there is no assurance that the residents around the former Antamok open-pit mine will not ‘revolt’ against the sanitary landfill.

This is expected especially when the garbage landfill has become operational and there is no way that the foul odor can be contained. Nobody in his right mind is willing to host in his or her backyard tons and tons of foul-smelling garbage dumped by a neighbor.

These are the reasons why Councilor Nick and some colleagues prefer to keep Baguio ’s garbage within the city’s boundaries. With that, the city is left with no other choice but to fix the Irisan dumpsite while preparing a new site at the foot of Santo Tomas which is city-owned.

In the meantime, MRFs (material recovery facility) will have to be installed in strategic locations in the city to serve the districts. The proposal by a foreign group assured that the city’s waste could be reduced by 40 percent with the construction of at least 17 MRFs. This will ultimately lessen the delivery of waste at the Irisan dump, the councilor said.

I too strongly oppose BC’s good proposal. Switching on the Google map in the internet, I saw that aside from the offensive smell that can not be contained by any means, below Antamok are sitios with ricefields, home gardens and houses whose water sources will surely be contaminated once the garbage pit operates.

Further below are tributaries that, once contaminated, endanger the condition of the mighty Agno River and all humans, animals and plants that draw life from it.

BC and its forerunner companies have already mined out the town’s minerals – making foreign and Manila capitalists very rich. And for some reasons, the relations between the company and Itogon, the host town of the mining operations, has been strained several times in the past.

While the proposed Antamok garbage dump will absolutely provide additional income for the municipality – just like a lollipop candy that is dangled to a little kid, the money earned can not compensate for whatever injury the 30-year operation impacts on nature. Environmental protection is non-negotiable.

As one who has seen and heard from relatives and company workers tales about unsettled problems now buried under the open-pit dust, I feel that bringing in the stench of garbage is abusive – an insult to the submissive Igorot or the meek and gentle Ibaloi. –ozram.666@gmail.com