I hate to be a doomsayer, but we may have a water crisis soon. With a great possibility leading to its dwindling supply, contamination may ensue.
The culprit? Illegal connections with corroded pipes having tiny cracks and holes in them. These are water pipes that have not been legally registered with water concessionaires.
Also, the unauthorized manipulation or tampering of water meters for the sinister purpose of stealing water. In addition to this, putting foreign objects such as magnets inside the meter and inverting the position of the meter.
Anything to slow down its speed resulting in a slower registry of water consumption. All these contribute to a looming water crisis involving the water quality and illegal connections.
These are connections not registered thus making them illegal connectors which include by-pass lines installed between the tapping point and the water meter. Yes, direct tapping of pipelines, and unauthorized reopening of closed connections.
We see these often in informal settlers where there are no sewer facilities, making clean water mix with raw sewage.
But the bigger picture is this: illegal loggers whose activities have caused a widespread denudation of our forests and whose operations have remained unchecked through the years.
And unless new sources of water are discovered, the Metro Manila area will suffer. Most of the current sources may come to low levels especially Angat Dam which is already way down to its critical levels due to extreme weather conditions caused by Climate Change.
This explains why deep wells have only murky waters or even mud due to the drying up of the water beds. Concerned environmentalists believe that a continuing indifference of government officials to this ballooning problem is already exasperating.
It is almost a crime. They added that many of our bureaucrats hold logging permits which they farm out to dummies, family members and close friends.
This, or some of them could be in the payroll of illegal loggers.
It was not a misunderstanding
Ambassador Kristie Kenney once said a positive mouthful on Gilbert ‘Gibo’ Teodoro when he ran for president. She described him as having “many positive attributes, including an impressive intellect and an excellent grasp of policy and strong public speaking skills.”
On the other hand, she described the late Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino as a “diffident, unassertive man continuing a political tradition handed down by his parents but not carving his own legacy.”
This caused a furor at the DFA under the Aquino regime and among Noynoy’s minions who collectively decried the lady ambassador describing her as “a dismal failure in helping Filipinos defend our democracy,” with the assumption that it was her job to do so and it was strange for her to utter such words.
Several years later, I am still one to believe that DND Secretary Teodoro is on the right track by saying that our policy on the West Philippine Sea has not changed.
Conclusion: the incident involving Chinese Coast Guard and Filipino soldiers was not a ‘misunderstanding,” as earlier mentioned.
No less than President Bongbong Marcos reiterated that “we will not give up our sovereignty – not an inch or a millimeter, and will seek no permission nor consent from anyone as we perform our sworn duties on the West Philippine Sea.”
“We are not in the business to instigate wars, as It was an aggressive use of force, and we will continue to exercise our freedoms and rights in support of our national interest in accordance with international law.”
This was a report given crystal clear by the Defense Secretary recently on the statement of our President on the Chinese harassment on our soldiers.
For this, Gibo has my vote in the future as he had it in the past.
Verbal diarrhea
The Superior Person’s Book of Words by Peter Bowler defines the word ‘battology’ as the “continual reiteration of the same words or phrases in speech or in writing.”
It is an unnecessary repetition of words. In short, ‘verbal diarrhea.’
From here, we see its wide potential for application to television, radio commercials, sales pitches by real-estate salespersons, spouse’s homilies, etc. time and again, we used to hear the previous administrations’ mouthpieces come to his defense.
That’s expected and could be tolerated up to a certain extent, as long as the speech does not end up as a fantastic fib.
Today, President Marcos is his own mouthpiece, and as eloquent as he is, he is careful but direct, knowing that his critics are on the prowl for one wrong word or phrase, or even a sentence that they may use for their tirades.
In doing so, we see the difference between being presidential and just a common thug.
-o0o-
Random Memorandum: China has 2,000,000 soldiers while the Philippines has 143,000.
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Factoid: Ferdinand Marcos received his formal education in Manila with a high school diploma at age 15 in 1933 from the U.P High School.
Three of his classmates received fame as well: Roberto Benedicto of the PNB, Sotero Laurel who became our ambassador to Japan, and Col. Napoleon Valeriano, a nemesis of the Hukbalahap.