Sierra Madre

COMMENTARY

Many saw less and less of Sierra Madre’s benevolence, replaced by glassy-eyed hunger for the mountain’s natural bounties to devastating effect.

Entertaining thoughts that compromises can be made against fully protecting the vital mountain range on the main island of Luzon is akin to harboring evil thoughts of mass murder.

Even worse, dodging blame for mass murder and salving a guilty conscience by conveniently convincing others compromises are possible is gas-lighting others to unwittingly commit mass suicide.

Mass murder and mass suicide? Alarmist exaggerations! Difficult to comprehend; and if one is cynical enough, mere picturesque oddities of the "believe it or not" variety.

Yet, anyone abetting mass death and destruction, even if done unknowingly, are definitely disturbing moral questions.

Besides moral issues, another way for persuasively calling attention to the folly and madness of not doing anything to protect and save Sierra Madre and its forest cover is by the language of an entirely plausible future apocalypse.

Unimaginable indeed are the graphic apocalyptic horrors of devastation and nightmarish human sufferings if Sierra Madre did not exist to shield Luzon from the howling ravages of super typhoon "Karding" last weekend.

In fact, such appalling horrors are the unexpressed thoughts every time we express thanks to our lucky stars that Sierra Madre is there against "Karding."

Sure, one can say "Karding" is a forgettable one-off event, another violent weather episode in a tropical country brimming with typhoon catastrophes year in and year out.

But it is sobering to realize that many suddenly are seeing Sierra Madre is more than its natural hulking majesty, but as a life-saving grace and its gift of thwarting terrifying portents of deathly, hellish horrors.

Still, what has a mountain range, scenically nicknamed as "the backbone of Luzon," got to do with the real world?

"One of the reasons for the more destructive effects of typhoons is the denudation of the Sierra Madre, the longest mountain range in the country, which spans from the province of Cagayan down to the province of Quezon."

"It is a 540-kilometer mountain range that borders the northeastern side of Luzon, hosts 14 protected areas, covers 1.4 million hectares, and protects millions of Filipinos, historically serving as the country's buffer and strongest defense from typhoons coming in from the Pacific Ocean, weakening them before they make landfall in mainland Luzon."

"Cagayan Valley, for instance, has been protected from the harshest effects of typhoons because of the mountain range."

Yet, Sierra Madre's brooding life-saving benevolence has tragically been set aside in recent decades.

The reality now is that Sierra Madre is suffering an excruciating slow death, manhandled and strangled by the same human hands and souls which the mountain range is supposed to save and protect.

Decades upon decades "of deforestation, mining, and improper land use, in addition to the passage of forest laws that fail to sufficiently protect forests and those who live therein, have led to the Sierra Madre's weakened capability to buffer mainland Luzon from incoming typhoons," La Viña and Reyes say.

Human affairs and human intervention have done its mindless, devil-may-care work. Consequently, many saw less and less of Sierra Madre's benevolence, replaced by glassy-eyed hunger for the mountain's natural bounties to devastating effect.

Contextualized, human hands doing illegal logging have led to soil erosion and deeper floods in low-lying areas, like Cagayan Valley that lie at the foot of the Sierra Madre.

"Mountains, slopes and watersheds in the whole Cagayan Valley have been stripped of native trees that hold soil and regulate water release; trees are cut down and forests threatened not only by illegal logging, but by agriculture in slopes and mountains, particularly yellow corn farming and the use of herbicide that kills all vegetation and weakens the soil," so says a study conducted by the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute for Mayor Tin Antonio of Alcala, Cagayan.

Yet, official remedial measures forestalling foreseeable disasters are long in coming. And, if there are any measures, these are woefully inadequate.

And another idiocy: Unarmed environmental warriors fitfully combatting armed interlopers on the ground are vilified as insurgents, often penalized, and sometimes killed. Where is our outrage?