Imagine – for Gina Lopez

The Pasig River is 26 kilometers long, 50 meters wide, and an average of four to six meters deep. The river basin includes: Pasig City, City of Manila, Pateros, Caloocan City, Marikina City, Pasay City, Taguig, Quezon City, San Juan city, Mandaluyong City, and Makati City. The Pasig River basin area is 570 sq. km.

Imagine what it would mean to Filipinos working off the wealth of the Pasig River. Filipinos as the commercial breeders of fishes, shellfishes, crabs, shrimps, and prawns farmed in the Pasig River. Food for local consumption. Food for global exportation. Imagine the thousands of jobs created for Filipinos nourishing the life and beauty of the Pasig River. Indeed, imagine the Pasig River flowing not with vulgarism submerged in barbarism, but overflowing, instead, with tourism!

But then again, our traditional way of life tells us to never imagine such things; especially the good life – one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. What we must only follow is what is written in the holy bible such as: “love not this world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not with him.” John 2:15. So why, for heaven’s sake, should we Filipinos give a hoot about the existence of the Pasig River?

Oh yes, the life we live as a people is the life we conceive for ourselves as a products of education. We Filipinos, however, have yet to grasp the reality of what it truly means to be the healthy masters of learning, not the sick victims of it. Indeed, to be the masters of education that’s not about love of a divinity or a mystery; but more about enhancing the reality of social sanity under love of country!

In the late 1980s, I was employed as the special assistant to Doris Ho, president of the Tourist Belt and Businessmen Association of Ermita, Malate. (TBBA). We tried planning and working to rehabilitate the Pasig River with all the possible technology available from Holland to do the job. The wife of President Fidel Ramos, Lady Amelita “Ming” Ramos also tried hard to clean up in order to resurrect the dead Pasig River. Nothing happened except that the Pasig River is still very much dead in filth and dirt – the exact reflection of our so-called “sacred beliefs and traditional values.”

Gina, I ardently hope you will succeed where others failed. Yours is a rare opportunity. I am rooting for you. If I could be of any help, I offer my services free of charge. In the meantime, I urge you to seriously look into the Filipino consciousness. It is mostly derived from our corrupt system of education. Indeed, the kind of education that makes us ignore filth and corruption here, filth and corruption there, and filth and corruption everywhere in our sick society. Nay more, it also makes us proud to “take no thought for tomorrow” since we are told that there is a better world to come after death. We Filipinos may not be among the “Chosen People of God,” but we are certainly the “Saved Sick Children of Asia.”

In the meantime, we simply cannot keep the Pasig River clean and vital by collecting garbage thrown into it. The sources of that filth and dirt come from our schools, colleges, and universities. The sick institution that must first be treated. Our Asian neighbors like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, etc. have done it. China is doing it now. It all begins not so much with the power of money, but simply with the power of love - love of country.

Perhaps, after great success in rehabilitating the Pasig River, we can also begin cleaning up another mess far messier than the Pasig river: The messy streets of Metro Manila. Many of them are no longer streets. They are now the dirty factories for making babies. Three ( 3 ) babies are born every minute or 1.5 million babies are needlessly born every year in the Philippines. The same babies who will eventually enroll in our schools, colleges, and universities. There, to learn not how to love a meritorious earth down here, but only to love a mysterious heaven out there. Indeed, to learn how to play more important roles in the rat-race for eternal salvation. But hardly to learn to take advantage of the power of love and knowledge that pertains, especially, to the health, sanitation, growth, and development of Philippine civilization. Poch Suzara