Environmental Elections

By Tiffany Queen Navarro

(Photo from trekthecity.com)

Take a fifteen minute ride around the metro, and chances are you’ll see posters and tarps plastered on walls and hanging off phone lines that are enough to send a couple dozen trees to their untimely deaths. With the increasing awareness of climate change, environmental degradation is now deeply seen and felt by everyone. With the onset of election period, campaign materials sych as posters, flyers, tarps, baller bands, shirts and stickers will be seen all over the place. They may be made of simple materials like paper, plastic and rubber, but they add to the already voluminous amount of trash being churned out by the city each day.

The placement of these materials can pose serious risks to the people and the environment they live in. In fact, MMDA officials have warned election volunteers about where they place posters and buntings. Stringing and hanging posters on phone and electric lines are dangerous not only for the people who hang them (usually climbing the poles) but for the people who pass by them. Sudden gusts of wind can entagle the wires and posters. Nailing tarpaulins to trees not only make them ugly, but also provide breeding ground for bacteria which will eat away at the tree. Posters plastered on walls are riplled away or fall, causing blockage to sewers and drainages. Despite this, they are replaced with even more posters, making edifices unsightly.

It is very timely to tackle this issue on environment degradation. As much as the candidates should present their goals in creating development for the Philippines, they should also create platforms that cater specifically to the environment. Stating with the electoral campaign period, they should be mindful of their contribution to environmental degradation in the country through the use of these election paraphernalia. As future leaders of the country they should be aware of what is happening with environment, and they should be the ones who should set an example on how each individual can help lessen the harmful effects of degradation.

Effective actions against poverty, household food insecurity, and environmental degradation in marginal areas require first and foremost the empowering and equipping of local communities to take up the reins of resource management. The importance of local area development and improved local governance - also covered in the other issues papers - must be emphasized. While the challenge for poverty alleviation in high-potential areas remains considerable, the prognosis is not grim provided agricultural intensification proceeds without environmental destruction. . There are countless organizations located all over the world that are dedicated to preventing the global destruction of the environment.

The point here is not to alleviate poverty in one single term or make the Philippines a first-world country in a short amount of time. Giving importance to the environment means making sure that people in the country will benefit from sustainable development. It means that they will have cleaner, greener, safer and healthier places to live in. One may consider voting for the person whose face is plastered on the wall, but it would be better for all of us if that person thinks about the future of the Filipinos and the next generations by proposing and implementing solutions to this effect of climate change.