No such thing as free lunch
Nothing is for free. There are always consequences and trade-offs for every choice made on a personal level and as part of a bigger entity such as ones’ homes, community and society.
Ask parents. They leave no stone unturned in ensuring that their kids’ potentials are maximized. They know that it can only be realized if children obtain the quality of education and environment that nurtures their creativity and makes them more productive, learn life skills and be self-reliant. Responsible fathers and mothers do not mind shelling out their hard earned money, toil more and make sacrifices for their children’s present and future. They know that to scrimp on education would make their kids perennially naïve, lacking in self-esteem, helpless and incapable of making informed judgments and contributing towards a more livable society.
Education deserves the highest budgetary allocation, mandated by no less than the fundamental law of the land. Do we have a government that takes on the obligation of providing the fundamentals for a more educated citizenry? Having 60 students share a teacher and unsafe schools with cracked walls and floors are sad glimpses of how education and human development rank in the hierarchy of priorities among the decision-makers.
Why are we scrimping on services that alleviate poverty, improve well-being, promote the health, comfort, safety and welfare of our children and protect our life support system? Why can we not have more school buildings with toilets, increase the salaries for teachers and embark on more faculty development programs, wider pedestrian pathways for children to walk to and from schools safely, cleaner air for them to breathe, litter-free surroundings and more public spaces and nature parks for them to learn more about nature and a sense of community and kinship?
What are local government units doing to improve the living condition and the literacy level of its constituents, especially the millions of children in households living below the poverty level? Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia boasted of Cebu as the richest province in the country. But what concrete programs has it and other local government units undertaken to enable our country to comply with its commitment to the world to reduce poverty level by 50 percent in 2015 under the Millennium Development Goals?
Do we have more children who do not drop out of school before finishing elementary education? Do we have more families with access to clean and uncontaminated sources of water? Do we have monitoring and benchmark systems to assess the quality of our air, water and land? Do we have connected sewerage systems with waste water treatment facilities? Have we sustainably managed solid and hazardous wastes and protected biodiversity? Are we embarking on actions such as creating more spillways and reservoirs and massive reforestation that adapt to and reduce the devastating effects of climate change? Are we capacitating our people to be resilient in facing disasters through education and wider participation in governance?
The President and more local chief executives and public servants should realize the wisdom enunciated by former Harvard President Derek Curtis Bok: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
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Knowing that the consequences for continued dependency on coal, oil and gas are far-reaching, and threatens our security and survival, then, government should actively push for a low-carbon economy. It should create a level playing field for renewable energy investors to flourish. If needed, it should even invest in RE, instead of appearing as spokespersons for the fossil fuel industry and worse, being a paid contractor for part of its operations.
To the President, energy officials and even the governor who mouth that “renewable energy is costly” to justify their heavy backing for the continuing unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels, we say: “If renewable energy is expensive, try disasters and displacement.” How long can we sustain the continuing challenges posed by landslides, flooding, coastal erosions, coral bleaching, and the damaged ecosystems as they impact our people’s health and livelihood and sense of security, especially the badly affected farmers and fisherfolk?
Countless community-based renewable energy technology programs such as wind and hydro have been proven doable especially if the people’s participation in adopting and implementing them are integrated. A more vigorous engagement that demands time, knowledge, focus and most important, care, emanating from civil society, with government and other stakeholders as partners, is required, at the very least.
Albert Einstein reminds us: “The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” No such thing as free lunch indeed.
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The EcoWaste Coalition, a network of over 125 public interest groups in the country, in cooperation with the International POPs Elimination Network, is co organizing Project XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence Analyzer) that will analyze the presence of lead and cadmium in children’s toys. Lead and cadmium belong to the First Priority Chemicals List of the Philippines that the government has determined as posing unreasonable risk to public health, especially to children. With hardly any local data available on lead and cadmium ingredients detected in children’s toys. It has however yet to formulate clear-cut policies on these chemicals, particularly in children’s products, to safeguard public health.
Through Project XRF, a testing apparatus will be obtained to analyze the presence of lead and cadmium on a wide range of children’s toys sold in shops, malls and in ukay-ukay stalls. Dr. Joseph Di Gangi, an American scientist who has conducted research on these chemicals on children’s products, will be the main speaker in the Children’s Health Forum on Lead and Cadmium in Toys on July 22, 2011, Friday, 10 a.m. to noon at the Justice Salas Moot Court Room, 8/F, University of Cebu, Banilad, Cebu City.
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Road Rev Team at 888 Media Forum: Tomorrow, July 19, at the Marco Polo Hotel, the innovative and trail-blazing Road Revolution team led by the leading global citizen, Tony Oposa, will meet our media friends. They will share the stories of young and forever-young citizens, who felt safe and valued as a human being, as a result of the closure of the entire stretch of Osmeña Boulevard on June 12, and more.
