Down under

Many have left Pariahan, but Domingo Martinez is among the holdouts. He and his wife believe in staying as long as there is livelihood to support them unlike in the city.

MANILA — As climate change protesters marched in Europe last Friday ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Madrid, Spain, villagers in the sinking Sitio Pariahan, Bulakan, Bulacan nearly 10,000 kilometers away just go about their usual routine. Its residents seem to be already resigned to the reality that their island has long been submerged due to land subsidence.

Experts says Pariahan continues to sink at a rate of four centimeters per year worsened by rising sea level blamed on global warming. Consequently, a basketball court where tournaments and fiesta presentations were once held is gone, while the only church is flooded and empty with moss eating its walls.

Folks in the former coastal community, however, are unperturbed. Life simply goes on. Pariahan folks live in bamboo huts raised above seawater by stilts. Rooftops have solar panels though to power appliances and TV sets that keep villagers entertained, an alternative to gambling.

Students still go to school but via bancas instead of jeepneys and tricycles. The same boats are used to make a living by catching fish and transporting seafood to markets.

Many have left Pariahan, but Domingo Martinez is among the holdouts. He and his wife believe in staying as long as there is livelihood to support them unlike in the city.

With adaptation as the key to survival, perhaps Pariahan’s underwater basketball court would still be useful as training ground for, say, water polo now that the sport is one of the events in the ongoing Southeast Asian Games where Filipinos are trying to excel to win a gold medal.