Nature can take care of itself

The past century, specially the latter half of it, showed humanity’s growing concern the destruction that it has wrought upon the environment. Habitat loss, ecosystem destruction, species extinction and endangerment, and pollution are among the many concerns raised by environmentalists and like-minded people.

At the start, those who espoused these concerns were voices in the wilderness, literally and figuratively. Policy-makers largely ignored them. Later on, environmental advocacy gained many adherents, and policy-makers could no longer ignore their calls.

Now, there is global concern about the environment, what with the perceived escalation of human-caused environmental problems that threaten to accelerate climate change and threaten the very survival of the human race.

The survival of the human race is the core of the issue.

While we mouth slogans about saving the environment and nature, what we are really doing is trying to save ourselves.

This planet we call home has already witnessed many cataclysms that have radically altered its environment. These cataclysms include several ice ages, global warmings, meteors that affected the entire planet, and a host of other changes that we could only imagine.

Climate change is constant, and has been happening since the beginning of Earth.

The constancy of change has caused the extinction of species, and the evolution of others able to adapt to the changing environment. In fact, our species, Homo sapiens, has evolved because of these changes. Other species, humanoid ones included, became extinct as they failed to adapt to environmental changes. The dinosaurs are a well known example of this phenomenon of extinction.

All the creatures on Earth are part of the environment. We all play a part in the evolution of the planet, either as causes of the ever-happening-change, or products of it as we adapt to the changes. If we fail to adapt, we become extinct, or we evolve into another being altogether to be able to survive in the changed environment.

Nature and the environment can very well take care of itself. Even if humanity unleashes its most destructive activities on this planet, nature and the environment shall go on. Many of the species as we know them might become extinct, and the human race might itself become lost, but life in this planet shall go on.

The direction of the evolution of life is always to improve upon existing species. Should humanity succeed in destroying the planet as we know it, we might become extinct as a species. But even if we do become extinct, life shall continue on this planet, and new forms of life shall appear. Humanity itself might evolve into another race more adaptable to the changed conditions. Perhaps this planet will even become a better place with us out of the picture.

If we continue to make this planet inhabitable for our species, we are threatening our survival as a race.

This is the reason why humanity is now concerned with the environment. It is only in the interest of self-preservation that we are overly concerned, even if only belatedly, about environmental destruction.

We are not saving the environment or nature. We are simply trying to save ourselves.

If we fail, we shall merely become extinct like the dinosaurs and the dodo. In our absence, nature shall continue, and surviving species shall continue evolving.

Our species has only existed for less than a hundred thousand years. If we manage to engineer our extinction, our presence in this world would be a very tiny speck in the billions of years that the Earth has existed and the additional few billion years that it shall continue to exist when we are gone.

This space does not say that we should stop being concerned about the environment. On the other hand, we can never be overly concerned about it. Let us find ways to keep it habitable for our species, for, as is oft repeated, it is the only planet we call home.

Let us try to save ourselves, hopefully for a time long enough for our race to do away with our frailties, hopefully for a time long enough that a better human species evolves from our flawed existence.

But we should not delude ourselves into thinking that nature or the environment needs us.

Nature and the environment have survived before humans walked this Earth, and this planet shall survive even without us.

 

More Shit

A previous piece on shit has produced some feedback, making this writer rather elated, as it is an indication that this space is being read after all. Other topics discussed in this space did not warrant any response from readers, so I presumed that nobody reads my pieces, or, even if somebody does, my spirited thoughts did not deserve feedback at all.
It’s nice to know that somebody reads what I write, and I thank those who do so, even if they think I am a shithead.
The reactions tothe piece were generally funny. One unknown texter, to whom I apologize for not knowing who he or she is (even as I asked who it was, the texter did not identify him/herself), said that what I wrote was “full of shit but it was nice.” The texter quite obviously thinks shit is nice.
I posted the piece on the bibaknets email list, and some members of the list recounted other stories of shit. I suppose shit at anytime makes for interesting conversation.
For this reason, I would like to oblige shitheads like myself by recounting another shitty story.
There was a foreign visitor to our shores back in the eighties, and I accompanied her to one of the villages in Sadanga so that she could observe conditions there. As in many other villages at the time, there were no outhouses or toilets, and one had to defecate in pigpens.
When the visitor had to move her bowels, we informed her of the age-old waste disposal system of feeding the pigs with our aromatic faeces. The foreigner quite naturally did not like the idea of squatting at the edge of the pigpen, with a couple of grunting pigs beneath her buttocks. I suppose she was also rather embarrassed that she had to do it in the open.
After we told her of how she has to do it, she lost the urge to defecate.
Unfortunately, we had to stay overnight in the village, and even though she ate very sparingly that night, her stomach and intestines resumed the pressure on her anus, wanting to rid her body of fecal waste, battling with her sensibilities. It was around nine o’clock at night that her insides won the war, and she finally went out to the pigpen.
Our hosts and I supposed that she waited until dark to defecate, for then at least she would be able to deny the pigs and voyeurs the spectacle of her bared buttocks and her other hidden anatomy.
Inconsiderately and insensitively, we had a few laughs as we listened to the pigs grunting outside the house, trying to stifle our laughter lest our visitor be offended. When at last she returned, visibly very relieved to have gotten rid of body toxin, we became embarrassedly very quiet.
Our visitor proceeded to her assigned sleeping space immediately, with just a murmured good night. She was probably as embarrassed as we were.
As things turned out, I had to move my bowels the morning after. As I positioned my rectal end at the edge of the pigpen, I noticed I was doing more grunting than the pigs. The pigs in the pen were unusually quiet, and quite unnaturally kept their distance, instead of waiting directly underneath my anus waiting for the manna to fall. 
I eventually finished, still puzzled as to the odd porcine behavior. 
When I was done, I remained near the pigpen, trying to solve the mystery of the quiet pigs. I noticed that the pungent delicacy that came out of my rectum was just lying there on the floor of the pen. The mystery got even more mysterious. The pigs’ behavior was not only odd; it was a total betrayal of the nature of their species! 
Then I noticed that beside my pile of shit was a much bigger pile of shit, obviously untouched by the pigs. It must have been the deposit of our foreign friend the night earlier. Now, even as the pigs wanted to get to the food I deposited, they could not find a way around the mountain of the foreigner’s faeces.
Our hosts in the village noticed the very same phenomena when they deposited their own shit. It became a conversation piece. The whole village was talking about the mystery, trying their darnedest best not to do it in our visitor’s presence, and trying to hide their mirth.
Everybody was relieved when we finally left the village at midmorning. Now the villagers could puzzle over the mystery in all hilarity, and their foreign guest could finally set aside the shitty ordeal she has been through.
She did not mention anything about it in the long quiet ride we had back to toilet heaven. 
I did not have the heart to tell her of the prevailing theory the villagers had as to why the pigs acted oddly: that even as the guest hated her ordeal, the pigs hated her shit more. 

 

Solar home systems: threshold to unforeseeable change

Up and down rocky paths

The way to Badeo is up the mountain in the middle of the picture.

Five men were walking up the rocky path up a mountain. The lead man, the guide, was understandably the fastest of them, setting a pace that would enable the group to reach the top of the pass before the April sun would climb higher on the horizon.

Bridge halfway up the pass

Already, even as the sun has yet to reach its hottest position in the sky, the walkers were sweating profusely, except perhaps for the guide who was just ambling along as if on a Sunday stroll. The other four behind him were however drenched in sweat, with their shirts wetly clinging to their backs and sweat dripping down their brows, the salt from the sweat irritating their eyes. Nevertheless, they persisted, trying their best to keep the pace set by the guide.

The last in the line of hikers was himself a fast walker, and familiar with the paths they walked. He perhaps chose to take the tail-end position for this reason, as he would then be able to encourage the less able walkers in the middle.

Two of the hikers, Kolbel Acquiapat of the Kibungan MPDO, and Raleigh Agdaca of MABIKA-Aus.

The second in the line was very able to keep the pace, never lagging far behind the guide, though he perhaps also had difficulty doing so.

The third in the line was also an able walker, steadily following the leaders. He was aided by a walking stick, one of those lightweight collapsible metallic canes. He was correct in bringing along the cane in the hike, for a cane certainly would have helped the fourth walker. The fourth walker was the slowest of them all, repeatedly pausing to catch his breath every once in a while, and drinking more than his share of the water that the hikers brought along.

Constantino Sudaypan, Benguet State University instructor, and Kolbel Acquiapat.

The leaders would, every once in a while, stop in a shaded portion of the path to wait for the others. But before the sweat stopped flowing, the group would once again strap their backpacks on and continue the hike. Their pace for the most part prevented them from appreciating the view of the surrounding mountains, mountains that seemed to be made up of rock, mountains whose sides were steep faces that showed interesting formations, mountains that, either bare of vegetation or covered with it, were spectacular sceneries.

The hike was supposed to take five hours, at the pace of the locals. With this group of walkers, they would take seven hours.

The earlier part of the hike was down a much gentler slope, taking the walkers an hour to the bottom, probably some 500 meters lower in elevation than where they started. The long climb up the mountain was much steeper, going up to the top of the pass 500 meters from the valley floor. The climb, due to the steepness of the path, would take them more than two hours before they reached the top.

Yet after reaching the top of the climb, they still had to go down the slope before they would arrive at their destination.

Children at Tawang, Kapangan, in the valley before the climb up the pass.

Were they backpacking tourists, or thrill-seeking mountain climbers? Nay, they were not.

Badeo, in Kibungan, is arguably the most remote village in that town, though Takadang, also of that town, holds the same claim. It was in these barangays that the Igorot Global Organization (IGO) gave 20 solar home systems (SHS) so that the people could have simple lighting. The hikers were going to Badeo to see how these solar home systems were faring. Were the SHS still working? How have the people benefited from the project? What changes resulted in their lifestyle after the SHS were installed? Etcetera, etcetera.

The mountainside along the road was planted with sayote. While the group was in Badeo, police officers reportedly found marijuana planted underneath one of the sayote plantations.

While walking down the mountain earlier, the group met two sets of walkers from Badeo. These walkers were carrying two sick persons to be brought to the hospital in Baguio City. The people of Badeo have to carry their sick some 17 kilometers, by their estimation, of uphill and downhill paths before they can reach the road, and so transport their sick to the hospitals, either in the Kibungan town center or in the farther places of Baguio and La Trinidad.

The remoteness of the place was underlined by the spectacle of the village people carrying their sick, and to see two groups in succession was truly sad.

People would ask, why did the people of Badeo build their village so far from the road? Why did they build their homes in so inaccessible a place?

They did not do it intentionally. these villages were there before roads were built. These villages rose in these places because it was in these places that people found some arable land that could support them. These villages rose because it was in these places that earlier people found water, and game.

If colonial road builders happened to build their roads passing through Badeo or Takadang, then the situation will be reversed, so that the it would be the other parts of Kibungan that will be far from the road, and thus remote. But perhaps the rocky terrain in these barangays kept this from happening, so that we are stuck to the present reality that to reach Badeo and Takadang, one has to hike for more than five hours.

And the village people would have to carry their sick the same distance, along the same steep and rocky paths, to reach the hospitals.

From the provincial road linking Kibungan municipality to the rest of the world, the first settlement of Badeo, Kibungan that may be reached is the village of Tableo. Yet one may reach the place only after nearly five hours of rigorous hiking down a mountain to Tawang village in Kapangan, up “Saknong,” a rocky mountain pass, and down the mountain to Tableo.

Tableo has 38 households, an elementary school, and a daycare center. In the school year 2010-2011, there were some 12 pupils attending the school, being taught by an intrepid volunteer teacher. The teacher was solely responsible for teaching the various grades. In the past year, the 12 pupils were distributed in three grade levels, so that the teacher was handling three classes all at once, trying her very best to impart the necessary skills and knowledge that the state educational curriculum required.

It was in Tableo that 3 solar home systems (SHS) were installed in April 2007, 2 in the school and 1 in the Daycare Center. 8 other SHS units were installed in other settlements in Barangay Badeo. 9 similar units were installed in Barangay Tacadang.

Part of Badeo "proper," one of several dispersed hamlets composing the barangay.

The Australia component of the Igorot Global Organization (IGO-Aus) funded the solar energy project, through a scheme being implemented by the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC). The original plan was for 40 SHS to be provided to Badeo and Tacadang. The plan was hatched in the 6th Igorot International Consultation in Australia in 2006.

one of many surviving cogon houses in Badeo

The SEP scheme was for the SHS to be provided to private household beneficiaries, with the beneficiaries paying for the SHS units at a subsidized price of P20,000, and with an initial installment of P2,500. However, villagers in Tacadang and Badeo were lukewarm to the idea of paying for the units, even at the subsidized price. Intent to help, the IGO-Aus, with the help of charitable persons, raised the necessary amount so that beneficiaries in Badeo and Tacadang will not have to pay for the SHS units. It was also decided that the SHS will be installed in public structures such as schools, barangay halls, and daycare and health centers.

Also, only 20 SHS units were brought to Kibungan, instead of 40 units. The remaining 20 units were brought to Asipulo in Ifugao where private households were more willing to pay for the units at the subsidized price. The PNOC contractor in charge of the installation of the SHS was expected to properly orient and train the beneficiaries as to the maintenance of the solar units. The contractor was also expected to visit the units at least once a year for two years after installation.

It was in April of this year that IGO-Aus, now called MABIKA Aus, sent a group to Badeo to check on the status of the SHS installed there. The group found that only one of the units installed in Tableo is functional. The two other units were not functioning. The main cause of the malfunction was the battery electrolyte solution drying up. Normal maintenance requires that distilled water be added to the batteries when the solution levels drop. Because the batteries dried up, the zinc and copper plates necessary for the batteries’ function became warped, rendering these useless.

Apparently, while the SHS were installed to benefit the entire Tableo community, no single person was identified to be primarily responsible for maintenance. In addition, the promised visits by the contractor never materialized. At the time of the recent April 2011 visit, the Tableo villagers said that it was the volunteer teacher and the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) who became responsible for the maintenance. Yet the villagers admitted that they were ill-equipped to do it. And so the batteries were destroyed, and 2 of the SHS ceased to function.

The solar panels and the supplied control panels continued to function, however, and an enterprising villager bought a car battery from far-away Baguio that they could charge using the solar unit in the daycare center. After charging, the battery is then brought to their home, where they make use of it for lighting. In a way, then, the SHS continued to function for the very reason it was donated to the community for: rudimentary lighting.

The SHS installed in Kibungan were supplied with 2 fluorescent fixtures for 10-watt tubes, as well as for 2 compact fluorescent lamps and 2 DC outlets. Since these were installed in public buildings, it was expected that their primary use was for public activities.

Well and good, but then its uses became limited. After all, schoolchildren are dismissed when it is still light, and normal daylight makes the lighting fixtures superfluous. The lighting function of the solar units was more helpful to the teachers, who could continue working on their reports and lesson plans after dark.

Of course the SHS were used for other public functions, such as village meetings and social activities, for the people could continue in their activities even after dark. It is noteworthy that in the classroom with the functional battery, a stereo component that could run on DC power may be found. The villagers have been using the stereo component during these public gatherings.

But social gatherings and meetings are few and far between, and while the batteries are expected to be fully charged after each reasonably sunny day, making use of the solar units for these purposes is an under-maximization of their potential.

The people also found another use for the solar units, perhaps with the intention of maximizing these, and that is to make use of the DC outlets to charge cellular phones. Before the solar units were installed, people had to hike the long distance to the road where they could charge their phones in AC outlets, at the cost of P20 per hour. Now, with the DC outlets, they could charge their phones right there in the village, for free.

The villagers admit that owning a cellular phone prior to the coming of the SHS was not practical. With phone charging right at their village, however, more and more of them found the necessity of purchasing these marvels of technology that would enable them to communicate with their relatives and friends in the outside world.

While the people would not admit it, there were some of them, aside from the one already mentioned, who were also charging their own car batteries using the SHS, and so could have electrical lighting in their homes, if only for a few hours at night and in the early morning.

The whole exercise of providing the SHS highlighted the functionality of the system, so that some of the villagers are have acquired their own solar units, belying their initial rejection of the proposal for them to purchase the SHS at a subsidized price. One of these households even has a DC-powered television set. The TV set becomes particularly popular during media events such as the Pacquiao boxing bouts, when the entire community would gather to watch, and the children acting out the punches delivered afterwards.

Perhaps it was the discovery of these many uses of the solar units, and the realization that the solar panels cost so much, that prompted the theft of 2 of the solar panels installed in other parts Badeo. Some of the lighting fixtures in Tableo are also lost, perhaps taken by people with battery-powered lighting systems in their homes.

Thus, while the SHS are still under-maximized and one of three non-functional in Tableo, the project has had a profound impact on the community. It has made the people realize that they could do much more with nighttime lighting, and their means of communication with the outside world has vastly improved.

If only for this, the IGO SEP project in Kibungan could be deemed successful.

The sun rises over Badeo

Electric-powered predictions in a remote place

The Igorot Global Organization donated 11 solar home systems to Badeo, Kibungan, and another nine SHS to Tacadang, in the same municipality. Aside from these, the Benguet State University-Affiliated Non-Conventional Energy Center (BSU-ANEC) also brought to the same barangays solar charging systems specifically designed so that beneficiary communities could charge batteries for use in their homes.

These solar energy projects have brought rudimentary lighting and DC-powered current to these communities.

Prior to these projects, the people in these places had no electricity, apart from those who went through the trouble of lugging their heavy batteries for charging in the distant central villages of Kibungan. These projects also heralded the acquisition of similar solar home systems by the more affluent households, so that the two remote barangays could now be described as energized, even as many households have yet to benefit from the technology.

Steep rock faces that are the main feature of the Kibungan landscape.

Perhaps the most noticeable effect of the coming of electricity, albeit solar-powered, is that the people in these places have developed the need for electricity, whether for lighting, to power their transistor radios, to charge their cellular phones, or to watch DC-powered television sets. Arguably, these are basic needs in other parts of the world, and it is quite wrong to deny the people of Badeo and Tacadang the same amenities. Indeed, the right to information and the need for the same; as is now conveniently made more available through the radio, cellular phones and television; is a development that would sufficiently justify the solar energy projects. The ease of communication made possible by the cellular phones is also another powerful justification, as is the simple lighting systems that enable the people to extend activities into the dark hours at night.

Light mist covers the mountains that are part of the uphill and downhill climb to Takadang.

Then again, beyond answering these basic needs, the coming of solar energy has introduced other needs that may mean far-reaching and profound changes in the way of life of these erstwhile simple communities. An example would be the cellular phones that now have become regular implements in several households. The cost of a cellular phone is no laughing matter, and to use these it is necessary to pay the cellular companies, or to buy “load,” that expires after a period of time, necessitating another purchase. As would be expected, the cellular phone users would not limit the use of their phones to essential communication, but would include the less-than-necessary text messages and calls that would increase their consumption of airtime and “load.”

While these phones answer the need and convenience of instant communication, they nevertheless also mean that the people have to spend for something they originally did not.

It is yet unfathomable how the incessant advertisements in radio and television shows affect the people’s thinking. It is however expected that continuing exposure to these advertisements would develop other needs, at least in the people’s perception, that would entail additional expenditures for their fulfillment.

Photo shows high tension electric wires along the path to Badeo.

These developments would gain more speed when the villages are fully energized via the national electrical grid, through the Benguet Electric Cooperative. As of the moment, the Beneco has already laid out electrical lines to some villages in Badeo and Tacadang. A month ago, however, the Beneco has yet to energize the lines since the villagers have yet to signify their intention to avail of the utility service.

The reason why the villagers have not yet applied for electrical connections is their perception that it is beyond their means, specially the initial outlay that they have to shell out for the electric meters and wiring in their homes. In a way, they have yet to understand the potential of electrical energy, and the profound change that would result once they get used to it.

Young children of Badeo, with the village's oldest living resident, Uyad Guwapo

We could just imagine when one of the villagers would buy a refrigerator or freezer, and would learn to make the Filipino cold treat “ice candy.” When the children would taste the sweet frozen delight, then they would definitely develop a liking. This would introduce another “need” for frozen treats. Then other treats like ice cream or cold soda drinks would also become part of the people’s fare.

The manifold electronic devices, like radios and stereos, computers, television and DVD players, as well as power tools and everything that runs on electricity, would later on be craved by the people of Tacadang and Badeo. Rightfully so, for these are already regular fare in other parts of the municipality and the country.

Yet the question that begs to be asked is whether the people of these villages have the means to sustain the enjoyment of these amenities, from the small value of “load” to the cost of electricity, from the cost of DVDs to the cost of elaborate home entertainment systems.

Uyad Guwapo and Raleigh Agdaca, MABIKA- Aus representative

The price of electricity and the amenities it brings with it is no small thing, but once it gains a foothold in Badeo and Tacadang, there would be no stopping it.

The people would then be hard put to satisfy the introduced needs. As it is, the economy of the place has hardly changed in the past several decades, owing to its remoteness from the market centers.

The people themselves recognize that, in terms of priority, what they most need is access to the market for their goods. What they most need is a road connecting their place to the rest of the world. They need the road so they could transport their goods, and engage in commerce, and thereby become economically empowered.

Without greater economic empowerment, they would have to continue to rely on the traditional subsistence economy, an economy barely able to provide for their daily needs.

Even without the costs of electricity and electrical amenities, the people of Badeo have had to resort to the planting of “high-value crops” that would be profitable despite the remoteness of the place. This high-value crop just happens to be contraband, so that more than a dozen of the people of the place are now languishing in jail. Yet many choose to plant marijuana still, for it is one product that, even if transported for hours of backbreaking trails, would result in a profitable sale.

Of course electricity would make the transport of this contraband much easier, for then they would discover that the weed may be compacted using electric=powered presses, and then processed into hashish or hashish oil. Electricity would then become truly affordable, and those who engage in the trade would acquire all the amenities they would want.

Yet we know that only a small fraction of the population are actually engaged in the trade. It is unfortunate that, with the entry of electricity, they might be the only ones who might be able to maximize its use.

If other livelihood opportunities are not made available to the people there.