Touch Me Not

An unfortunate incident happened two decades ago in one of our town's forests in Pampanga.

Five men decided to hunt for animals in the forest. It was said that one of the hunters had warned his companions to be careful in hunting for animals in that said forest because there dwelt a "fairy" or "diwata" who was said to be the forest's protector or guardian.

The men went on and did not listen to their co-hunter and decided to slaughter a cow, happily feasted on it as their major meal.

After an hour or so, the men felt too much pain on their stomachs, dizziness, and eventually died in the process.

They should have listened to the wise hunter in the first place.

The people in Pampanga have learned their lessons and are doing lots of measures to keep their forests safe from corrupt hunters, and most of all to corrupt officials and politicians.

A few years back, a tele-communications company decided to build a tower in one of our major forests in Mt. Arayat, Pampanga. The mayor and residents of that town rallied against it because they don't want to experience landslides and floodings as what happened in Ormoc, Leyte in 1994 as more than 8 thousand people drowned because of environmental degradation in that place.

The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in Pampanga in 1991 also contributed much to the pollution of air all over Asia. Although some people believed that there are political reasons (as the stay of the US bases in Angeles City were rejected on a Senate vote) why Mt. Pinatubo erupted after more than 500 years of being inactive, it suddenly erupted and had taken lots of lives and properties.

Nowadays because of too much politicking in our government, they even want to use officials of the environment sector just to satisfy their greed for money and build communication lines disregarding the safety of our people in the future. We've had too much of communication lines, what we need is good governance from our leaders.

Please "touch me not" as Dr. Jose Rizal, our national hero had said....