blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

Teaching the undergraduate environmental science 1 course at UP is extremely challenging since I had to consign the syllabus to the trash bin! Why? It is because the traditional idea of chopping down the environmental system into its spheres e.g. lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere etc with their problems may not reflect what is happening in nature. Of course we have to introduce these "sphere" concepts because it allows us to have a good initial grasp of the various physical and biological processes happening. However in nature, what happens in the hydrosphere for example has a direct effect on the atmosphere and of course on the biosphere. All these processes are linked. That everything is linked in nature is the central tenet of environmental science and environmentalism. The natural processes are linked and so too is the damage we humans inflict on these processes. Perhaps the history of our dealings with the environment can be simply summarized...

It was meant to be an old style war movie in which the Nips all die and the Yanks all live (with two exceptions). Too bad we no longer have John Wayne or ol' blue eyes on the screen. Nonetheless, it is a refreshing change from what Hollywood has dished out in the last 12 years or so. The 1990s slop of war pics focused on the futility of war and this started with Schindler's List and peaked with that Saving Private Ryan. By the time that Pearl Harbor movie came along, people were fed up. BTW, Pearl Harbor is the only movie in history to have offended all sorts of war vets. The Army nurses protested their being depicted as "sluts", the Pearl Harbor vets complained of the inaccuracies, the Japanese hated the idea that they were stereotyped once more and most especially the Japanese-Americans, whose painful experiences in America's concentration camps were once again put to light. After watching the movie, I immediately grabbed hold of 5 books on the Cabanatuan Raid f...

My Environmental Science freshman class recently planted several indigenous Philippine trees on unused land at the UP. The trees were Dao, Tamyo, Kaliskis, Molave,Kupang, Balacat, Bagras, Narra, Lankang-Gubat, Kamagong and Balite. Some of these trees are remembered just as place names. For example, Dau and Mabalacat in Pampanga used to abound in these trees. Today not a single Dao or Balacat tree can be found there. Likewise, Kaliskis,Kupang, Balite are names of many barangays in the Philippines. You would be lucky to find the trees for which the places were named in these places. Most of these trees grow tall and majestic. They were real landmarks all over the Philippines. Thus many of the trees are rare and some are endangered. But the memory of these trees on the landscape can only be gleaned from place names. In place of these trees, we have replaced them with alien species like Gmelina. At the University of the Philippines, much of the trees growing are foreign. The iconic tree of...

My freshie students planting a molave tree on unused land at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City