THREADS OF SEEMINGLY UNRELATED EVENTS

Item 1: Birds from the north migrate to tropical areas of the planet and bring the threat of the Bird Flu Virus. Health agencies around the world and in the Philippines react by disseminating warnings about the avian threat. Chicken prices plummet in Negros Occidental because of a false alarm.

Item2: Green Peace members symbolically storm a coal fired power plant in Masinloc, Zambales recently. Guards in the power plant react violently by beating some of them black and blue. The protesters charge that the power plant is a threat to the environment. Yet, at the very moment that the group breached the perimeter fence of the plant, employees were planting mangroves on the beach a few meters away from them.

Item 3: A motel in this city initiates to improve the beach front near their establishment by filling up the beach with earth-fill to construct a bay walk, a without proper permits from authorities. Legislators and executives from the city state that the project is illegal and threaten to demolish or expropriate what has been constructed. Other people in the know comment that if government execute the threat, then all illegal structures in the public domain must suffer the same fate.

Item 4: An explosion occurs in a tunnel in Mt. Diwalwal in Compostella Valley. The number of casualties until now is uncertain. What is only sure is this: An explosion occurred and there were casualties. For sure, close to ten bodies were recovered.

The four events listed above are testaments of an interaction between us and our surroundings. In the first case, it is nature seemingly putting pressure on humans. In the next, it’s one group claiming to protect nature from what we humans have created. The third, is a case of “good intentions” running afoul with government procedures. While the last, another mining accident we will all forget about in a few months.

This corner will attempt to find the threads that connect these events to each other and to our daily grind. I invite you to post your comments so we can have a dialogue about THE interaction between us and our surroundings.