Salud!

Salud! The Spanish toast is a toast not just for an occasion, but literally means "To Health!" We'd like to raise our glasses to the Bukidnon Association of Water Districts (BAWD) for having the integrity and conviction to oppose the entry of another agricultural plantation into the increasingly overcrowded province.

The aggrupation of six water districts have passed a joint resolution opposing the entry of Sumifro (Phils.) in barangay San Miguel in Maramag Municipality and San Carlos inValencia City. The group includes the water districts of Malaybalay, Valencia, Maramag, Manolo Fortich, Don Carlos and Kibawe.

According to the report by Gemma Tenorio, our indefatigable correspondent in Valencia City, quotes the resolution as "recognizing the urgency and potential ill-effects of agri-ventures, strongly opposing the proposed establishment of another pineapple/banana plantation in the province.

BAWD Board Chairman Ondrado Micayabas expressed the board's alarm at the prospect of another plantation in San Miguel. Although he acknowledges the economic benefits of the project for residents of the area, the potential health and environmental hazards not only the concessionaires of the water districts, but the 'general public' as well.

Well, bless your soul Chairman Micayabas for facing up to such "projects" and properly informing the public on the potential hazards arising from the use of pesticides and inorganic fertilizers which would threaten groundwater sources. As BAWD President and Valencia Water District President Ruel Padrequil put it, he hoped they could stir awareness and social consciousness among local officials of Valencia and Maramag to ensure the protection of their water resources.

More and more, the internet has made us aware of the interrelationship between events happening on contiguous parcels of land, however distant. In this instance for example, it's not only the people of Bukidnon but even more, the people of Cagayan de Oro and Misamis Oriental who should take up the cudgels for the valiant knights of the BAWD.

People living along the rivers emanating from the landlocked province as well as those in the deltas leading to Macajalar Bay are most at risk from the pesticides, fertilizers and God knows what other sorts of mayhem planters in the uplands use on their crops to make them meet "global standards."

Because the very being and end of agricultural corporations is profit, it is the people who live beside or adjacent to the lands where their crops are planted which take the brunt of the fallout from industrial agricultural pollution, in order that "entrepreneurs" who till the land to feed people of distant lands. Even if it's just the groundwater sources the BAWD are most concerned with, people in the riverbanks and the bay should even more be made aware of the dangers posed by pesticides and other sorts of chemicals leached to the groundwater and flushed out to sea by such agricultural plantations.

And that's just one of the dangers. Tailings from mines, industrial pollution, and the flotsam and jetsam from a steadily increasing population also do their bit. Take this recent excerpt from a column by Henrylito Tacio:

"The nearly 2.2 million metric tons of organic pollution produced by the ever growing population has also deteriorated the water quality of the country. In 24 provinces, one of every five residents drinks water from dubious sources, the Philippine Human Development Report says."

Even more that the BAWD, another champion of the environment who is unbending in his conviction that tinkering with the environment to allow profits to be made by a privileged few is Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward Hagedorn. Even if his jurisdiction is rich in mineral which could reap untold bounties for his constituents, mining is banned in Puerto Princesa. Hagedorn's mathematics is simple: if an enterprise, no matter how profitable, destroys the land and makes it unfit for living, we want no part of it.

Agriculture may not be as blatantly destructive and dirty as industry, but people should be aware it does pose threats to them as well, especially the corporate/industrialized agriculture undertaken by profit-oriented multi-national corporations. So the next time an "investor" expresses an interest in putting up an enterprise in a large tract of land near you, alert the community and go over his plan with a fine tooth comb. You'd be surprised at what you can find lurking beneath slick powerpoint presentations.

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