Kamayan para sa Kalikasan

Inventions Inventory, 'Tangkilikan' pushed

AN academe-based center to start and maintain an inventory of Filipino inventions, and closer linkaging among inventors’ and other groups, in line with the “Pambansang Tangkilikan” frame- work, were the two major agreements arrived at during the session on “Filipino Inventions and the Environment” of the Kamayan para sa Kalikasan Forum held last June 21.  Both resolutions have since been translated into work plans and actual steps in initial implementation.

 Full Story

Forum Topic for July:

Metro Garbage in the

Annual 'Season of Floods'

'Kaya ba ng Bayani ang Basura at Baha?’

THE FLOODS have been really deep, what with the seemingly unending series of days that Metro Manila and much of Luzon were being battered by rains.  But just how deep has been our analysis of the flooding problem and the related issue of proper and prudent garbage disposal especially in mega-urban areas like Metro Manila?  How do we solve it? Simplistic dismissive analyses won’t do, much less idle fingerpointing.

Full Story

EDITORIAL

BOXED FEATURE:

SPECIAL MESSAGE:

COVER QUOTE:

The 'Super-Bayani' Against the Great Floods

The Alternative Path: 'Eco-Modernization'

The Coops Have Decided to Join You for Environment Conservation

"We really cannot expect the Philippine government to support Filipino inventions and products.  The government has committed not to develop Filipino products that would compete with foreign ones.” –Engr. Daniel Dingel, Filipino inventor (said during an earlier session of the Kamayan Forum)

Cover illustration by Ding Reyes 

  EDITORIAL      

The 'Super-Bayani' Against the Great Floods

COME hell or high water, the super-resilient Filipino survives and thrives.  About hell, well, there is the ironic fulfillment of the pronouncement from Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel Luis Quezon preferring to have a government “run like hell by Filipinos than one run like heaven by the Americans.”  Apparently, Quezon could not have imagined suffering hell from both the Filipino politicians and from foreign overlords running our affairs and miring most of us in worsening poverty.

About high water, well, hanggang dibdib high floodwaters, even lampas-tao in some areas, have become an annual occurrence with the annual certainty of the rainy season, in what was referred to before as “Manila and Suburbs” (later dubbed as “Greater Manila”). The super-resilient Filipinos have kept on wading, swimming, riding bancas, wearing kapote, shorts and slippers to work, cursing the floods and the traffic jams that these cause, and coping in sufferance. What else could we do?  Good question!  We can actually try to solve this problem.

The rains are indeed given by Mother Nature, but much of the was designed to be absorbed by the roots of all those trees She had also given us,  especially in all those mountains.   Where did all the trees go?  Where have we allowed them to go?   The rains used to come in generally moderate amounts, spread the whole year with a much shorter summers; but destructive “development” has disrupted Nature’s ways, causing long hot summers to be followed by “seas of water” falling from the skies.

The sea level is reportedly rising by a few centimeters every year and would increasingly flood the world’s coastal cities; the melting of the ice caps have something to do with that. And the continued refusal of the United States to sign the Kyoto Agreement will spell a continued worsening. Blame Mother Nature for the floods?  No way!

Weren’t moviegoers made to pay the “flood tax” with every ticket? Where has all the money gone? Surely it has not been going into effective flood control. And solid waste management has to come into the picture. With the abominable practice of maintaining dumpsites and landfills finally discredited and made illegal, basura collection in the metropolis is impaired, abetting the practice of throw­ing garbage in our esteros, our draining system. This has been causing floods and other problems.

We all can be the “super-bayani” solving this problem, by actively moving together to reduce, recycle and reuse our solid waste, starting right at home, whatever government does, or does not do.

  FORUM FOCUS         

Forum Topic for July

Metro Garbage in the

Annual 'Season of Floods'

'Kaya ba ng Bayani ang Basura at Baha?’

THE FLOODS have been really deep, what with the seemingly unending series of days that Metro Manila and much of Luzon were being battered by rains.  But just how deep has been our analysis of the flooding problem and the related issue of proper and prudent garbage disposal especially in mega-urban areas like Metro Manila?  How do we solve it? Simplistic dismissive analyses won’t do, much less idle finger-pointing.

This concern will be addressed in this month’s session of Kamayan forum to be held at Kamayan-EDSA on July 19, with the new Metro Manila Development Authority Chairperson Bayani Fernando invited to shed light on the MMDA’s problems and plans.

Other invited speakers include Mother Earth Foundation President Sonia Mendoza, who turned out to be out of the coun­try  but  promised  to send  Board Member Baby Reyes to represent the foundation, and Metro Manila Federation of Recycling Cooperatives Chairperson Narda Camacho. 

The forum’s teaser question, “Kaya ba ng Bayani ang Baha at Basura sa Metro Manila?” challenges  both the new MMDA chief who had a generally good record as Mayor of Marikina City, and the Metro Manilans themselves if they could make the collective resolve to rise not only above the flood­waters but also above some of their own practices that cause the floods to form and rise. 

Forum participants are expected to raise the correlation of the MMDA’s garbage disposal policies and plans, the Metro Manilans’ waste-related practices, and the national government’s inability to curb logging and to push its reforestation programs.

Fernando is likely to be asked by participants to present and, if needed, defend his full program and plans for garbage disposal in the national capital region. Some communities and organizations have reacted adversely to his alleged plans for the reopening of the San Mateo dumpsite and the closure of the materials recovery facilities (MRFs) built by his predecessor Ben Abalos, now Comelec chief.

The former mayor of Marikina City received accolades for the cleanliness of that city’s streets, sidewalks and other public areas and for setting aside bike lanes along the main road­ways.   

 TOP

  FORUM ECHOES           

Inventions Inventory, 'Tangkilikan' pushed

AN academe-based center to start and maintain an inventory of Filipino inventions, and closer linkaging among inventors’ and other groups, in line with the “Pambansang Tangkilikan” framework, were the two major agreements arrived at during the session on “Filipino Inventions and the Environment” of the Kamayan para sa Kalikasan Forum held last June 21.  Both resolutions have since been translated into work plans and actual steps in initial implementation.

Filipino Inventors Federation (FIF) President Gonzalo Catan Jr., and Filipino Inventors Society (FIS) Chairman Felipe Odulio and President BG Modanza, as well as United Inventors of the Philippines President Orlando Marquez, led a big delegation from the  inventors sector in airing their woes, mostly centered on lack of government support and the effects of colonial mentality among Filipinos.

Dr. Ernesto R. Gonzales of the University of Sto. Tomas Social Research Center, another inventor, chose to expound on the ecological and business aspects of the subject, along with Engr. Faustino Mendoza Jr., president of both the National Economic Protectionism Association and the Sentro ng Agham Pilipino in Baguio City, Tony Cruzada of the SanibLakas Foundation’s Sanib-Sikap program, and Mike Melchor of the Confederation of Citizens’ Emergency Response Networks.

Mendoza accepted the challenge raised by forum lead moderator Ding Reyes for Sentro ng Agham Pilipino to form and host the proposed inventory of Filipino inventions, and Board member Cristino Panlilio of the newly-formed Galing-Pilipino Movement expressed his group’s readiness to attract mass media and public attention to the Filipino inventions. 

Cruzada, also a member of the information and education committee for the 6th National Cooperative  Summit  this November 28-30,offered to help market the inventions that may be bought and utilized by cooperatives, especially in agriculture and power generation.

Samuel Cribe, Boy Scouts of the Philippines national officer for major camping activities, vowed to study how BSP can make use of Filipino inventions during scout campings. Mountaineers for the Environ­ment (MoFE) President Rey Cuyugan voiced a similar commitment during the forum.

 TOP

  BOXED FEATURE          

The Alternative Path: ‘Eco-modernization’

AN ALTERNATIVE path has emerged in the 1990s in waste management is taking over the burn (incineration) and bury (landfill) propositions. It stresses economy of resource use and safety of materials. This is a simple pro­position, but it effects can be so far-reaching and dramatic that it arguably constitutes the beginning of a new ‘post-industrial’ era. Its aim is to redesign the whole system of material flows in order to eliminate waste and disposal. Companies and whole industries are pursuing zero waste programs. Ja­panese car makers have now reached 85% recyclability and were targeting 90% by 2000. Honda Canada, whole Ontario plant produces 167,000 cars a year, recently received an award for cutting its waste by 97% to 2 kg per vehicle.

Chemico-energy modernization (incineration, waste to energy) use sim­­ple flows and complex treatments and is organized around the stages of disposal (collection, treatment, disposal). Waste minimization through eco-modernization, on the other hand, depends on complex flows and simple or specialist treatment. It is organized around material streams and creates a circular flow of separate materials as an alternative to the linear flow of mass waste. Its central concept is the ‘closed loop’.

The 3 stages of eco-modernization

1. The starting point for recycling systems is where retailing ends: the household. In the Philippines, 74% of the waste come from the households (MMDA report). Intensive recycling requires households to separate their waste into: nabubulok (biodegradable) and the di nabubulok (non-bio­degradable). Paper is segregated at source to prevent contamination such as broken glass, food waste and moisture.

2. Collection provides the link between the household and reprocessor. The methods and skills used determine the quantity and the quality of recovered material. Once separated, baled and dispatched, the next stage of the process lies with the manufacturers. The processing sectors have the specialist knowledge to convert recovered materials into useable inputs: how to take ink off old newsprint or recover tin from tin cans. Increased recovery of materials generate innovations downstream: reconverting materials and developing new products that can use the materials. These innovations are the second stage in the closed loop.

3. Design. Some materials are expensive or impossible to recycle. Recyclers curse multi-layer packaging (like Tetrapaks) and disposable dia­pers. Some recyclers refuse to pick up plastics because they are so expensive to recycle. As a result, pressure is pushed back up the stream to redesign these items or to provide substitutes.

Some products, like consumer durables, are necessarily complex. They can be redesigned to lengthen their lives and to ease recycling. For example, car and electronic manufacturers have simplified the plastics they use. Some computer cases now contain no glues, paints or composites. Manufacturers have redesigned packaging for re-use, such as plastic crates and pallets, and designed machines so that modules can be replaced rather than the whole machine being scrapped.

SOURCE: A Mother Earth Foundation information sheet recently e-mailed by Sonia Mendoza

 TOP. 

  SPECIAL MESSAGE           

The cooperatives 

have decided to join you

for environment conservation!

Springing forth as the Seventh Principle of Cooperative Identity is the cooperative sector’s genuine concern for the community. We have resolved to be an active player in the national synergy-building of active stakeholders for the environment. And we en­shrined this resolve in our Covenant for the  6th National Cooperative Summit…  

...wherein we highlighted environment and sustainable development concerns in not just one but two of the nine Summit objectives... 

   We are with you. We are all together in this!

All are invited. to the  Kamayan para sa Kalikasan Environmental Forum held regularly, since March 1990, on the 3rd Friday every month, 10:30am-1:30pm at the Kamayan Restaurant along EDSA, Mandaluyong City. It is convened jointly by the Communicators’ League for Environmental Action and Restoration (CLEAR) and Sanib-Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan (SALIKA), fully sponsored by Kamayan.