Over the din in the ATF clean-up and the waste incinerator controversy on the worsening garbage problem, and that knee-jerk reaction to blame everything on the incompetence and motives of government officials, we overlooked the basic truth -- we are all to blame. We produce this garbage: the household waste, the industrial waste and hospital waste. We pass the buck to our officials and say, "here, get rid of this for me." Then we roll our eyes and throw our hands up in the air when we see them bungle up with the waste incinerator.
As that British chemistry professor of Greenpeace noted, "people should not rely on government to solve their problems, but rather on themselves." We created the problem, we should provide the solution. People who can't handle their responsibilities are always quick to pass blame on others. For much of our social ills we like to make the government the convenient scapegoat. It's like that joke about the bayot: "Kung magbagyo, pasanginlan ang bayot. Kung mag El Nino, pasanginlan gihapon ang bayot. Unsay ilang pagtuo sa bayot, gamhanan?"
Unsay ilang pagtuo sa gobyerno, gamhanan? If we have such a poor opinion and mistrust in government, why do we persist in laying our problems at the portals of City Hall or Capitol? Take traffic. Oh, we're so quick to bitch about our traffic enforcers but what about our driving habits? Imagine the money spent on those steel fences, cat's eyes, and tire clamps because people won't respect traffic lanes, no parking and no U-turn zones. I can't believe that the City is now spending taxpayers' money on an ad campaign reminding people to keep Cebu clean. Hellooo? Didn't our parents and teachers teach us well enough about littering, sanitation and cleanliness?
Reduce, reuse, recycle and recover. These are the four R's in waste management. Reduce means conserve. Reuse applies to hand-me-down clothes. Recycle is when you salvage what's left of the shabby clothes turning these into cleaning rags or doilies. Recover, why man, that's when you bury the tattered rags in the compost pit for fertilizer. We don't need environment experts from Greenpeace or DENR to lecture us about this. Especially not in technical or scientific terms. Our elders have known this and have been practicing the four R's all along. I can get a better demonstration from my grandma except that she already passed away. She made toothpicks, brooms, puso, balls, hats and baskets out of coconut palm leaves.
In school Home Economics and NACIDA taught us how to make flowers and curtain dividers out of drinking straws, paper mache vases out of old newspapers, and table mats and cushions out of dressmakers' retaso. During my childhood years we lived and breathed the four R's in our household. We cooked expired powdered milk into polvoron. My brother made sailboats and truck wheels out of discarded rubber slippers. When I was nine I owned a pair of tire rubber sandals that I wore everyday to school. For my first communion at the age of 11 I wore a dress converted from a gown I wore as a three-year old flower girl.
Practicing the four R's is the Filipino way of life. Filipino ingenuity, after all, is synonymous to recycling and improvising. Look at the national symbol of this ingenuity, the jeepney. Ponder on the lechon - every part of it is consumed, including the viscera that is prepared into dinuguan and the left-overs that are made into paksiw. Go to Panganiban St., marvel at all those surplus shops selling locally fabricated and used car parts. Go to Carbon, reflect on the craftsmanship of the flower pots, water jars, and urns made out of tires. Go to the pier where eateries cook every body part of the goat, chicken cow, and pig: the entrails, brains, tail, feet, and ears.
It's Christmastime. Many homes, offices and classrooms are decked with decorations made out of candy wrappers, plastic tumblers, twine, cardboard and paper. The Filipino habit of opening presents carefully so we can reuse the wrapper, box and ribbon is very much alive this season. That we have become sloppy and slobs is not inherent in Filipinos. We only forgot what our elders taught us. Reduce, reuse, recycle and recover.