The ninth wonder of the World

LIGHTER MOMENTS
Hilarion Pawid

“Water is the central fact of existence”
“Cadillac Desert” — Marc Reisner.

In time when all the watersheds are gone, the Ifugao rice terraces will beg for water to sustain itself. It will be a site of mud terraces without water that shall perhaps be maintained as a tourist and destination spot.

On the other side of the mountain in Benguet, huge turbines of two hydroelectric dams of Ambuklao and Binga fed by the upstream watershed of Mount Pulag will function no more. It will mean a higher cost of electric power generated by bunker fuel imported from the middle east.

In Ifugao, tourists will continue to come and gawk, not for its past wonder, but for the neglect, indifference and apathy by so-called modern-day generations. That will be the ninth wonder of the world by then - a contrasting comparison of an illiterate ancestry with the genius of engineering and common sense environmentalism to contemporary times.

Such would be the scenario if nothing positive, concrete and tangible is done to curve the continuing rape of watersheds that feed life-giving surroundings.

For the past decade, bulldozers continued to wreck havoc upon the mossy forests along the boundaries of Benguet and Ifugao provinces in the towns of Buguias and Tinoc, respectively.

To date, hundreds of hectares of pine and oak forests had been cleared, rolling plateaus leveled and replaced by vegetable gardens. A replication of the infamous rape of Mount Data half a century ago.

In Mount Pulis, wanton quarrying of gravel and sand continue at Sumigar point slowly denuding the forest that directly feed the rice terraces in Banaue and Hungduan, Ifugao.

Deaf to these man-made environmental epidemic are officers of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources who prefer to fatten their butts in comfortable offices some seven hours ride away in Baguio City.

On the other hand, local officials empowered by the local government code to protect the environment sadly come out with half-cooked ideas and parade them as concrete strategies and accomplishments but with no action sorrowfully.

In the intervening time, concern citizens persists on raising the issue of environment protection, yet, remain helpless as their crusade seem to go nowhere. These good natured citizens are even wondering “who is in charge?”