Are we ready?

Woke up reading on my timeline how the 6.7 magnitude earthquake news in Luzon shook the whole country while we are still experiencing flash floods due to Typhoon Fabian’s rains even after leaving the Philippine Area of Responsibility. For almost a week, we have been experiencing heavy rains and strong wind due to Habagat while still being cautious about the alerts pertaining to the Taal Volcano’s eruptive activity. The earthquake’s epicenter happened in Calatagan, Batangas so it really caused panic to people in Luzon as it is located in the province where the Taal Volcano is. Philvolcs later clarified that the earthquake that happened earlier today was not connected to the volcanic activity in the Taal but rather it is due to the movement of the Manila Trench. Ah! I also forgot all of these different natural disasters occurred at the time of this whole Pandemic, with the additional cases of Delta Variants in the country.

Browsing in my Facebook timeline these days, shook the hell out of me, most of the news was so devastating. How come this happened in just a span of the moment while the country is still facing this whole shit of pandemic. I even saw some post saying they were already confused about this whole situation as they were walking into the evacuation center but then forgot their face shields and facemasks, should they go back get the shield and mask, risk their lives again in that flood just for the sake of being protected from COVID-19? Some buildings and houses were also damaged due to the earthquake. Just thinking about it made me felt so down, how much more about those persons in that particular situation.

I actually lived in Palawan and just to give you an interesting fact, our province is being considered as “earthquake-proof”. YES! Another additional fact is that I experienced an earthquake situation when I was already 20-year-old in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro where I was relocated for work. For a person like me who has never encountered earthquakes (even heavy flash floods), I was really scared when I saw our computers with that shaky movement while my co-worker shouted at me to go under the table and protect my head. I was out of my province for 5 years and I got only experienced those kinds of natural disasters so I must say that Palawan is indeed the safest and stable province in the Philippines with no active volcanoes, neither active faultlines nor deep trenches. But honestly speaking, natural disasters also starts to happened here in my province like floods or landslides and I think it’s because of the booming of tourism before pandemic, lots of buildings and resorts were added in the province, people from other places would want to move permanently and established their businesses here, and lastly I noticed that the government even let cutting of trees happened in some parts of the province. It’s horrible! I grew up in a province where we have this thought of taking care of environment, then all of the sudden some “not locals” would want to destroy our place just because of the money.

But what really is the main thought of this blog post? Well, I just want to share my realizations today about the climate change… that amidst all of these natural chaos happening, are we, HUMANS ready for it? Have you heard about the 2030 Climate Deadline? It’s a serious warning that we only have until 2030 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to near zero before global warming hits a point of no return. Are we running out of time to stop climate change? How can we help save our Mother Earth? Have you ever noticed those sudden natural disasters coming in different countries? Are we being punished for being abusive in our planet?

As we experience these kinds of natural disasters in time of COVID-19 pandemic, may we always remember to pray and ask for wisdom and protection from God. Most especially to our leaders, to have the knowledge and strong will on how to handle these kinds of situations. May we have the answers to our questions while being mindful of our planet Earth.