This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 11, April 22-28, 2007
Filipino Poor to Suffer Most
from Brownouts, Climate Change
BY
AUBREY MAKILAN AND LISA ITO Baby Sta. Cruz, 45, has a
rheumatic heart disease and the extreme heat worsens her condition. To avoid any
harm the hot temperature could cause her, she takes a bath often. With the
soaring temperatures nowadays, she takes a shower at least thrice a day.
An electric fan already set
to the maximum speed is not enough to relieve the heat. She also has with her a
wet towel she uses to cool down her exposed body parts. Unfortunately, an
environmental activist group warned that the recent incidents of extreme heat
and power shortages in Luzon are just the beginning of more climate
change-related phenomena that would affect the Filipino poor the most. "We should brace for more
extreme heat spells and its effects on our power, water, and agricultural
systems, and on the millions of Filipinos living below the poverty line," warned
Clemente Bautista, Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE)
national coordinator. Because of the extreme
heat, the state-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) said that a surge in demand
for electricity caused a power shortage last April 18. The power outage hit
large parts of Luzon, further reducing the power supply. Poorest hit hardest On April 17, temperatures
shot up to 36.8 degrees Centigrade, the hottest recorded so far this year by the
Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).
The weather forecasting agency also warned that hotter weather spells would
persist until next month. "It's the 'little people'
in the Philippines who suffer most from heat spells and extreme weather
conditions caused by climate change: those who do not have access to
electricity, let alone the luxury of air conditioning and other amenities or
travel to cooler climates, for example,” said Bautista, “Those who can no longer
afford to pay such high power rates, or have no access to safe, cheap, potable
water services. Those who can not afford hospitalization and medical expenses
from asthma or other respiratory diseases which are aggravated by the country's
worsening air pollution problem in addition to the extreme heat." Bautista added that it is
ironic that millions of poor people suffer when they are not the main
contributors to global warming. It is the “dirty industries and filthy-rich
transnational companies whose executives can easily afford to avoid the heat
spells here who are the culprits.” Kalikasan PNE said that in
the Philippines, 49 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are from the
energy sector primarily from oil industries, power generation and manufacturing
industries, many of which are monopolized by foreign transnational companies
such as Petron, Shell and Caltex in the oil industry and Mirant (U.S.), Enron
Power Corporation (U.S.), Far East Livingston (Singapore) in the energy sector
with its coal and oil based power plants. "Worldwide, climate change
primarily threatens the lives of the poor from underdeveloped and Third World
countries when in fact the United States is the biggest processor and
unregulated user of oil and petroleum products all over the world and the number
one polluter of Green House Gases (GHG), emitting more than 25 percent of all
the GHGs," said the environmental activist leader. Pollution Despite the threat of
global warming, Bautista said the Arroyo administration has "not passed or
implemented effective policies and programs to reduce the GHG pollution from
industrial sources." Even with the passage of
the Clean Air Act in 1999, Bautista said, air pollution particularly in the
urban areas continues to worsen with the unregulated use of fuel in industries,
which will only aggravate the extreme weather conditions. "In fact, in the Arroyo
administration's strategic energy plan, the contribution of coal power plants to
energy production will also increase the volume of pollutants coming from the
energy sector," said Bautista. The group also said that dead
rivers full of debris and poisonous industrial waste, faulty and inadequate
sewers, and lack of cheap potable water systems are making the extreme heats
spells hitting Metro Manila even more unbearable for ordinary Filipinos. Kalikasan PNE,
along with party list groups Bayan Muna, Kabataan, and Suara Bangamoro, and
scientists organization Samahan ng mga Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya Para
sa Sambayanan (AGHAM), dramatized this call by holding an estero (creek)
clean-up along the Lagarian creek near Barangay Pinagkaisahan and EDSA Avenue
corner Kamuning Road in Quezon City. Bautista said
that almost all major rivers in Metro Manila are now biologically-dead, the most
infamous of which is the Pasig River. Nationwide, he said 50 of 421 rivers―or
one out of eight― are biologically-dead, or incapable of sustaining life, and
are hazardous if used as drinking, recreation, or irrigation sources.
“Thus, even if
we are literally surrounded by water, Filipinos can not readily use these
sources to seek relief from the scorching summer heat,” he said. “In fact, only
65 percent of the population is able to source water for domestic consumption, a
large portion of which remains unsafe for drinking.” Bautista also
called attention to the health hazards posed by the lack of adequate sewerage
systems in the cities, unabated industrial waste and the lack of an effective
garbage collection system. The group said
that only 13 percent of the population in Metro Manila is connected to
centralized sewerage systems while around 25 percent of Metro Manila's garbage
ends up clogging rivers, esteros and drainage canals, and waterways.
Disappearing Forests In urban
areas, the conspicuous lack of green spaces and tree cover also aggravates the
unbearable heat, Bautista said. However,
outside the cities, fast disappearing forest cover all throughout the
Philippines is a more alarming cause for concern, he said. According to the last
inventory of the Forest Management Bureau in 2002, forest cover has dipped to
only 16 percent of the Philippine's land area. Added to this, 124 out of 154
watershed areas designated by the DENR are already in critical state. In spite of
this, the Arroyo administration continues to promote the wanton extraction of
fast disappearing forest reserves. "The
government has one by one lifted log bans and farmed out commercial logging
permits in the form of Timber Licensing Agreements (TLAs) and 23 Integrated
Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) permits from January 2001 to 2004. IFMAs
allow their holders, including private industrial tree plantations, the right to
timber and all other forest products in their territories," Bautista explained.
Bautista said
that this rapid trend of denudation would spell more bad news for the country in
the long run. "Forests, next
to oceans, act as a carbon sink that can mitigate global warming. They help
generate a liveable air environment by absorbing carbon dioxide emissions,
pollutive chemicals in the atmosphere and particulates and release oxygen back
into the atmosphere," Bautista said. "The
Philippines has an ecosystem that is archipelagic, generally mountainous and
sloping, so we really should maintain an ideal forest cover of around 54 percent
of the total land area or more to help prevent occurrences of flash floods,
exacerbated landslides, and biodiversity loss," he said. No
government plans Bautista said
that it is the "people (who) are suffering from national government and local
government officials' lack of a comprehensive water management system and the
absence of comprehensive rehabilitation and management plans to revive our dying
or dead rivers.” He called on
the voters not to vote for those officials who can afford to beat the heat by
staying inside their air-conditioned cars and rooms or go on vacation to cooler
climates when majority of the poor have to suffer from the lack of such basic
necessities, such as safe and affordable drinking water. Bulatlat © 2007 Bulatlat
■
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