One of the things that really surprised me is the mandate from the powers that be to clean your trash ! Yes that's right before we can dispose of our trash we have to make sure its washed! It is for recycled goods mostly but it really made me compare the difference between garbage disposal here in the Philippines and where I am from in the US. There in the US, it was just second nature to throw away used bottles, cans and anything else you didn't want anymore without regard to where it ended up. But here I really have to say there is much more attention paid to the environment and recycling. Maybe the original intention wasn't about the balance … [Read more...]
Several Steps Back To The Time Of Coal Power!
July 30, 2009 By 14 Comments
The City where I was born is called Bradford, situated in West Yorkshire in the Industrial Heart of the country in the gloomy Northern Area of England! This area really became developed in the Industrial Revolution when the invention of Steam Power was the latest and greatest technological breakthrough to hit the world! Bradford was at that time the center of the worlds woolen industry so with the new power source, literally thousands of new facilities or mills were constructed in order to speed up the production of the finished woolen cloth and vast fortunes were made by the Wool Barons! In order to produce the steam, Coal, which is a fossil … [Read more...]
Nuclear Energy in The Philippines
May 24, 2009 By 37 Comments
I must confess, I was never a friend of nuclear energy. I really got keen of hearing, when Philippine Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes admitted that tapping nuclear energy as a possible source of power is an option that the Department of Energie (DOE) wants to take. Now I really like to use the term "however". Yes, thanks God! "However", Reyes said, "let's not get into nuclear power until we are dead sure (?) that we are ready. And, we are ready if we have stakeholder support." Well said, Sir. It was also very good, that Reyes mentioned the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, which was built and then eventually mothballed. It is indeed the most expensive … [Read more...]
Mother Nature in the Philippines
May 2, 2009 By 29 Comments
One of my columns in printed media says something about the environmental lawyer Antonio Oposa Jr., he of varied and risky advocacies for Mother Nature, is this year's recipient of the Environmental Law Award (from 2008) from the US-based Center of International Environment Law (CIEL). Oposa is the first Asian and Filipino to win this award. Environment protection in the Philippines seems to be a sad topic. If I still look around, I really get discouraged. Sure, there are still some (not many) politicians and people like Oposa, who act for the future of this country's environment. Oposa, for example, worked hard to establish the so-called maximum … [Read more...]
Illegal logging
November 15, 2008 By 18 Comments
It's not long time ago, I wrote an article entitled "Philippine Bookworms". Being in the publishing business since 1969 I know very well about the demand for paper (trees!) if one talk about books and magazines. I was surprised to read the following news: "Despite the myriad problems bugging the Philippine wood industry, wood products have remained one of the country's biggest exports over the years. Wood-craft and furniture exports racked up nearly 102 million US dollars in August this year, according to the National Statistics Coordinating Board (NSCB)." More of the Philippines wooden furniture and wood-craft were shipped to the US, the … [Read more...]
Show some pride, Pinoy!
October 30, 2008 By 107 Comments
You know, one thing that I noticed since the first time that I visited the Philippines back in 1990, and all through the years is that when you enter the house of most Filipinos, it is very clean! Even the most poor of people who have not much more than a shack display the utmost of cleanliness. It always made me feel good to see this in Filipino households. If you accept my statement that Filipino households are kept very clean and sanitary, I wonder how we can reconcile that with my next statement... Did you ever notice that if you go to the beach here, or some other "nature spot" there is trash everywhere? Certainly, this is not true … [Read more...]
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