46th Heartbeat

APOCALYPSE

Before the start of the new millennium, there have been reports circulating around the corner, involving various publications, media, internet, and even religion. There were radical claims that the end of the world will be at the onset of the year 2000. It was really petrifying for most, because the whole world was not geared up for this abominable possibility. According to popular beliefs, this turn of the new century will serve as the day of reckoning, where a violent and sudden end would terminate all life on earth. This could also denote major social and political upheavals that would occur around the world, particularly the so-called war of Armageddon in the Middle East. People really feared the day when God would pour horrendous wrath on most of humanity or Christ would return in what was referred to as the second coming.  These suppositions created hysteria among masses, some fleeing their homes and went to the mountains or burrows in order to hide. There were some fanatical groups who resorted to mass suicides because they were too afraid to face the actual catastrophe that will take place. People here and there would barge into supermarkets, hoarding stocks of food, clothing, medicines, electrical devices and other amenities because they didn’t want to grope in the dark. Everybody was in panic!

But when the clock struck at 12 midnight of January 1, 2000, there was jubilation rather than dread. And life came back to normal.

Not until now, when these abovementioned warnings came back with a vengeance, supported by various horrifying events that took place around the globe. Storms, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods and droughts served as a foretaste of this so-called “Armageddon”. However, it was not sheer fate that ascertained all of these disasters, for the results were actually consequences of the wanton destruction of the environment. Perhaps most of us are already familiar with Global Warming but there are some who are still confined in their apathy, thinking that everything in this world is inexhaustible and can exploited over and over again, only to regret later on when they have experienced the havoc brought about by their own capriciousness. In fact, our country was not spared because recently, we also had a dose of our own medicine. The chaos brought about by super typhoons “Ondoy” and “Peping” left a grim mark in the very consciousness of Filipinos, and these ruinous aftermaths will forever be written in the pages of our history.

Last year when I was assigned in a parish as a deacon, one of the many things that we did after the Typhoon Frank was to go to different schools and baranggays in order to give a short catechesis on ecology. In order to prepare myself, I had to watch a made for television documentary entitled, “Signos: Banta ng Nagbabagong Klima” that tackled climate change, which was the effect of variations in solar radiation, the Earth’s rotation in its orbit, mountain building and continental drifts, and changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. The earth’s atmosphere is being protected by a layer that usually controls the temperature below and determines the life of our planet. But because of human activities, i.e. neglectful industrialization and modernization, there was a drastic change in our climate and ecological systems. The increase in our global temperature has caused sea levels to rise and changed the amount and distribution of precipitation throughout the world. Thus, the result was unpredictable weather events that in due course inflicted massive devastations.

For the record, prior to Ondoy and Peping (or even Frank), we already have experienced the worst of disasters and I just want to pinpoint some:

In the 2006 list of World’s deadliest disasters, the flashfloods that took place in different towns of Albay were included. The town of Guinobatan, which was badly ravaged by Typhoons Milenyo and Reming was entirely covered in lahar, changing the rural landscapes, with houses, rice fields, and live stocks being swept away, killing more than 700 persons.

In General Nakar, Quezon Province, the mountainous areas inhabited by the cultural group, the “Dumagat” was in dearth. They were forced to go down, abandoning their houses because they were experiencing too much dryness and humidity at the same time, and this has caused a deadly epidemic, Malaria contracted through mosquitoes.

In Baranggay Pilar, Bauang, La Union, the 30 hectares of land occupied by a big fishing community was reduced to a meager 3 hectares because of unpredictable rise of sea level that resulted in coastal erosion.

The Artex Compound in Malabon, Metro Manila who used to be a happy village that hosted merry fiestas and basketball tournaments was gradually drenched in flood waters because it became a catch basin of torrential rains, transforming the entire place into a water world, where people relied on paddling in order to make ends meet.

Having confronted with all of these horrifying events, I can’t help but think of the imminent end. Beyond the prophecies of doom, are scientific and practical claims that tell us to brace ourselves for more catastrophes, with an appeal to our very minds and hearts that we SHOULD REALLY LEARN from our mistakes. We only have one planet to subsist, and if we destroy this, life will be totally wiped out.

The Apocalypse is indeed very near.

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