People are calling the recent tragedies that befell the country as “acts of God”. Maybe in legal parlance, it falls under that category. But in the true sense of the word, what happened was not brought on by God’s wrath. It is actually man-made. Brought on by man’s abuse of his environment.
Let’s take for example what happened to Ortigas Extension, Pasig City. Do you know that there are numerous subdivisions in this area? As in subdivision after subdivision. Trees were cut and drainage systems were sacrificed in favor of urbanization. So what happened when a really strong typhoon hit the area? Massive flooding! The water from the typhoon had nowhere else to go except accumulate and rise up.
How about the Baguio (Benguet) landslides? Same thing happened. Trees growing lush in the province were cut in favor of commercialization of the place.
Everything that happened with Ondoy and Pepeng were results of years of abuse we inflicted to nature. It is a wake-up call for all of us to start caring for the greens and do our share in preserving nature.
