Peace and quiet

Environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa may not be a rock music fan but he does have a point when he filed a complaint against the organizers of benefit dances called bailes held in his native Sta. Fe town in northern Cebu.

“What rendered this practice (benefit dances) objectionable is the fact that they employ the services of extremely loud sound systems,” he said in his complaint filed before the Cebu Provincial Prosecutors’ Office.

Oposa brings to the table serious cred, being a 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Foundation awardee for his eco-advocacy work particularly in a 10-year case against illegal loggers that resulted in a favorable Supreme Court ruling which reiterated inter-generational responsibility and rights of the public towards a healthy, sustainable environment.

And a healthy, sustainable environment starts with noise-free, zero-distortion communities. Apparently, the urban malady of nightlife disco and rock music made its way to the Cebu countryside, where as Oposa said in his complaint, it has attracted the local youth whose restless energy can give way to violent behavior during these events.

While the typical sounds of nature—birds tweeting, cattle mooing and bleating—can hardly be found in a metropolis like Cebu City or another other Metro Cebu area, it doesn’t mean that it is impossible to create that environment in an urban setting.

It’s not only Oposa who’s against organizers staging these events which, whose beneficiaries may not necessarily be the indigents or the school, church and hospital that badly needs funds to buy equipment and facilities.

Ordinary folk, to whom the lawyer may be kept busy procuring signatures to support his complaint, have long been complaining about this invasion of their peace and quiet especially during the evenings when they would rather tune out and rest from a hard day’s work.

It’s not only them who long for those days but urban settlers as well, who’ve been on their toes all day servicing customers or kept busy staring down on computer monitors and typing away reports and shelving files for their superiors.

Again one understands that not everyone is keyed the same—other people like really loud music, not necessarily rock, hiphop or dance music. But there are such things as earphones and headsets which can isolate whatever passes for music these days squarely into the ears of one listener without disturbing the others.

And didn’t the doctors time and again advised people against indulging their eardrums on loud music lest they lose their hearing at a very young age? As the venerable actor Eddie Garcia said everything including music must be enjoyed in moderation. Keeping out loud music during fiestas and benefit dances in the cities and the countryside is one way of restoring some peace and sanity in the neighborhood.