LAWS TO BE GOVERNED

 

The Environmental Laws of the Philippines is designated by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). They had many Acts that have been assigned as a law. The Pollution Control Law P.D. 984 consists of the Clean Air Act of 1999 R.A. 8749 DAO 2000-81, Clean Water Act of 2004 R.A. 9275 DAO 2005-10, Ecological Waste Management Act of 2000 R.A. 9003 DAO 2001-34, and the Toxic Substances & Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Act of 1990 R.A. 6969.

The Clean Air Act of 1999 R.A. 8749 DAO 2000-81 is a comprehensive policy and program for air quality management in the country. The DENR Administrative Order No. 2000-81 is the Implementing Rules and Regulations of this Act. This act is important because it is evident today that the pollution in our atmosphere is very severe. The pollution should be regulated and controlled. So they have made rules that all sources of air pollution must have a valid Permit-to-Operate. All proposed or planned construction or modification of sources that has the potential to emit100 tons per year or more of any of the regulated pollutants are required to have an approvedAuthority to Construct before implementation, for purposes of sampling, planning, research and other similar purposes. The DENR-EMB, may issue a Temporary Permit-to-Operate not to exceed ninety (90) days, provided that theapplicant has pending application for Permit-to-Operate. Permit-to-Operate is valid for one (1) year from the date of issuance unless sooner suspendedor revoked and must be renewed thirty (30) days before the expiration date and upon paymentor the required fees and compliance with requirements, in case of sale or legal transfer of a facility covered by a permit, the permittee shall notify the DENR-EMB within thirty (30) days from the date of sale or transfer. The owner or the Pollution Control Officer shall keep a record of the operation of the sourcesand shall furnish a copy to the DENR-EMB in a quarterly basis. Right of Entry, Inspection and Testing by the authorized representative of DENR-EMB.

Clean Water Act of 2004 R.A. 9275 DAO 2005-10 was also done by DENR. They have also done rules to permit for discharging wastewater such that for industries without any discharge permit is given a period of twelve (12) months after the effectivity of the IRR, DAO 2005-10 dated May 16, 2005, to secure a discharge permit. Pollution sources currently discharging to existing sewerage system with operational wastewater treatment facilities shall be exempt from the permit requirement. The discharge permit is valid for a maximum period of five (5) years from the date of its issuance and must be renewed 30 days before expiration. The self-monitoring report shall be submitted to the Regional Offices within fifteen (15) calendar days after the end of each quarter.

Ecological Waste Management Act of 2000 R.A. 9003 DAO 2001-34 also has been done as a law because of the waste that is so much evident. Even in the streets, we can see people throwing their garbage anywhere causing too much flood when rain comes in our country. RA 9003 institute measures to promote a more acceptable system which corresponds to the vision of sustainable development. Generally, it aims to merge environmental protection with economic pursuits, recognizing the re-orientation of the community’s view on solid waste, thereby providing schemes for waste minimization, volume reduction, resource recovery utilization and disposal.

 Toxic Substances & Hazardous and Nuclear Waste Act of 1990 R.A. 6969 is another law that has been passed. This is for industries having heavy loads of toxic and hazardous chemicals that can be harmful to the society. This act will regulate, limit, and prohibit importation, manufacture, processing, sale, distribution, and use, and disposal of chemical substances and mixtures that present unreasonable risk to public health and environment. It will prohibit the entry and disposal of hazardous wastes into the Philippines territorial limits. It will also advance and facilitate research on toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes.

OUR WORLD CAN BE DEADLY

Our world is made up four layers, namely the inner core, outer core, mantle, and the crust. The earth’s lithosphere comprises the crust, where the living organisms can be found. The earth’s crust is not entirely a solid state. It is made of tectonic plates attached together side by side. The side of one tectonic plate is partly on top of another tectonic plate. That is how the earth’s crust looks like. The movements of the tectonic plates are responsible for the earthquakes, tsunamis, the creation of volcanoes and mountains. There is a scientific explanation beyond all the things that we see and touch in this world.

As one tectonic plate that is under of another tectonic plate moves, that plate moves down into the mantle only by centimeters in a year. That small movement creates a huge impact on the land where we live in. that impact is what we call earthquakes. It destroys many structures in the land and kills many people. Earthquakes under the sea create tsunami, resulting huge tidal waves in to the lands. It creates huge current that fill flow towards the land. Movement of tectonic plates also creates mountains.

The land on the plate on top of another plate creates mountains. Volcanoes are also created. But where does the magma from the volcanoes came from? As the tectonic plate moves and one goes down of the other, it creates pressure underneath, at the upper mantle. The upper mantle consists of hot liquid hat has convection current circulating. As pressure rises, the magma will go up and finds a soft spot in the land and creates a volcano.

The world we live in is very complicated as we cannot see. We don’t know that one day, a big impact on our crust will suddenly happen. We should be ready to face that challenge and live our life as it seems to be our last. 

            

IS THE WATER YOU DRINK SAFE?

Water is a main source of life aside from the light coming from the sun. Every creature and living organisms in this planet needs water in order to live and survive. But where does water come from? Water is already present when man was created. When we look in a world map or globe, you’ll see that the biggest part of the earth is water. Seventy percent (70%) of earth is water. Primarily, it came from the oceans. People do not get their supply of water from the ocean because it is too salty. When a person drinks salt water, he becomes thirstier. Water that we drink comes from the dams that humans created. The water in the dams will be processed and be supplied to every city that needs water. 

The water in the land is not directly come from the ocean. The water we have in the land comes from what we call the hydrological cycle or in simpler term, water cycle. The water from the ocean evaporates in the air. As the water evaporates, it condenses and forms clouds. Clouds are formation of water vapors in the air. Later, the water inside the clouds will drop in to the land and sea; this is what we call precipitation. As it precipitates, water will scatter in the land and some will infiltrate in the soils. Others will flow in to bodies of water such as lakes, bay, and streams. And later on, it will evaporate again. This cycle will continue endlessly. This is how we get our water in the land.

So you think, we have infinite supply of water because of the cycle? I don’t think so. The water that humans, animals, and plants drink will not be part of the cycle anymore. Not all types of water are compatible to our lives. Salt, contaminated, and waste water is not for humans, and other living creatures. The water we should get must be safe to be used. Safe meaning that the water must be free from any kind of toxic contamination that can be harmful to human and other living organisms. This is why we have limited supply of water. Water should be properly used and not wasting it. Supplying safe water to urban and rural areas is not easy and it needs big amount of money and labor for it to be continually being supplied. 

Imagine that there is only a little supply of water because of the water that is wasted and not being used properly, water will be in scarce. People also should not throw their wastes and garbage to any kind of flowing water because that water can still be used for other purposes. Waste water is not good for agriculture and especially to humans in the cities. Humans cannot live only with food. Humans can live in water alone. Water is one of the basic necessities of life. It should be conserved because in the future, if people continue to not conserve water, it will be in scarce because of limited supply and allocation.  

BIG IN LITTLE WAYS

People change as time passes by. The lifestyle of people also changes. With all the ground breaking of technology in our planet’s history, little by little mother earth is losing her life. It all started in the Industrial revolution. Toxics, harmful chemicals, pollution, and wastes became evident generation after generation. In the present, we can see the effects of what people are doing in our planet. How can we stop, if not, lessen the damage we are causing? We don’t realize but a small wrapper of candy can have a big negative effect on our planet.

In my home, when I’m not using any of our appliances, I unplug those. Such as the television, yes we turn it off when you don’t want to watch anything. But the television is still consuming power from the electrical outlet source which is a waste of energy. That energy came from a power plant that also uses a huge amount of resources and energy to distribute electricity to every house hold and buildings. Unplugging our appliances or any gadgets when not in use is a big help for our planet to conserve energy.

Another thing that I do in our home is that we recycle plastic and paper bags. Those came from the stores that we buy things and goods. What if after we use those bags, we just throw it? It will result in a city which is garbage full. Look what happened to our country in the past few years. Floods can be seen anywhere. It started few years back when typhoon Ondoy came. The whole metro sinks in flood. One reason of that is clogged drainage system in the city. That is because of the waste of people that were not properly disposed.

Doing those are small ways and efforts can result a big difference. The future generation would thank us for saving the only planet we could live in.

WE DON'T NEED "WANTS"

Can you imagine a world that is empty? No things, nothing that a human being can use or maybe just the trees and animals around us, it’s like living in mars with absolutely nothing. Many years ago, life was just simple and what we see is what we get. There are no internet, no fast transaction, but as the time passes by things change and everything is now what I call an overly populated world.

As I’ve watched the Video of The Story of stuff and how things work, I could simply imagine the things around will drag us to a worst scenario. If we don’t stop the things that we do today time will come that we can destroy our planet. We cannot tell where will it all end, but the thing is it will continue to manifest that human is one of the main reasons that can cause a massive destruction of earth that we live in. Simple, we can help our planet, like if we don’t need that much stuff in our house let’s just not purchase it from the market and if we are fascinated with kind of things around think about if we really need this stuff or it will be a part of a junk and then after that we will dispose it again.

As for me the more money you have the more spending you’ll do but think again if we really needed those kinds of things. In that case if we try to balance our spending, we can be sure that the volume of manufacturers will decrease their numbers of product and so as the production, also the consuming of natural resources. Well, it’s about accepting change here; it’s the way of our lifestyle, but at the same time we cannot control the company with what they want to do or produce we simply give satisfaction to ourselves in order to help our environmental issues. 

Can You Still Eat THEM?

We might be happy that we could purchase meat from the market at an instant. Not like the people from the past that they would hunt animals and that is the only time that they would have something to eat. But did you know what’s behind all those meat being sold in the market? Capitalists conquer a part of a land, most likely from agricultural places, and convert it into farms of pigs, cows, chickens, etc. they’ll make a barn where they will collect and breed those kinds of animals that will be slaughtered and be sold in the market. It may sound that they are doing just fine but what we don’t know is that there are negative effects that our mother earth would suffer.

Some farms treat their animals bad. They inject antibiotics to the animals so that they would be healthy for the market. Yes, they would be healthy but when the antibiotics are over used, the animals might get sick. It would be bad for the people consuming the goods from the market. It could lead to diseases like Madcow disease and AH1N1. It might also lead to epidemic to the society, and worst to the whole world.

A farm would not only occupy only few animals. It would occupy about a thousands of them. With those numbers of animals, we could say that the waste coming from them is also massive. Where does the waste of the animals go to? The drainage might lead to a body of water like river. It will contaminate and pollute the water and will not be safe to drink. Come think of it that one farm will have a thousand of animals. How many farms are there in the world? It’s up to you to find out how massive the waste it produces and will pollute our environment. It will also destroy communities.

The life of the people working in the farms would also be in danger. They are working in a dangerous working condition. Their health is in danger; our planet’s life is in jeopardy

NO TIME TO WASTE

Our planet is the only place we could live in. Earth is the only humane planet that people can live and survive. Throughout the history, the lifestyle of people change due to the change of needs and wants. Life becomes more complicated as each generation passes by. Complicated in a way that compared to the people from the past, we are more adventurous and knowledge expands dramatically. The technology becomes a need in our society today. You cannot live in a simple life without using any of our advance technologies. With that, life becomes easier and fast track.

But are you aware of the consequences of all the things we are doing today? It is not a secret that our planet is not in a good shape. This means that in everything we do today, mother earth is losing its life. We can see poisoned oceans, polluted air, bald forests, depleted soil, dying coral reefs, mass extinction of species, and many more. All of these are effects of what humans are doing negatively in their lives. People abuse the natural resources. Countries today are more concerned on their economic growth rather than the unhealthy condition of our planet. They spend their budget on military or for business. They don’t see that our living conditions today become more and more not suitable for human beings. If nation leaders spend their budget on how to save our planet, maybe we are living in a clean and fresh environment.

Problems in our society are not as a whole, it comes from individual people. Each of us is the main cause of the problem. Global warming is the most urgent problem that the world is facing. The world becomes warmer and warmer each year. We cannot predict on what will be the weather tomorrow. For an instance, assume that rainy season starts on the month of June. But now, typhoons come in and out of our country any day of the year. It is one of many result of global warming. Can you imagine that the ice caps in the Antarctic are rapidly collapsing due to time? A change of degree higher is a big problem. Soon, the lands will loose their shores and becomes smaller because of the melted ice in the north and south. People take the recourses of our planet sooner than we think. Trees in the forest are fast disappearing. There will be no trees sipping the water underneath. That will result erosion, flash floods and many more. Pollution in the cities is also a big problem. Too much carbon dioxide is going up to our atmosphere. Greenhouse gasses are one of the solutions here. People should use eco and bio friendly things like electric car instead of fueled cars because oil is fast depleting and it could contaminate body of waters that could kill sea animals and reefs. If possible, people should use solar powered panels in homes so that resources wasted for distributing electrical power will be lessen.

Another problem that the world is facing is too mush wastes. Those are coming from the goods that we buy from the market. But where do those goods came from? It came from our planet’s natural resources. After using, we throw it away. Landfills become mountains today. People buy things for the sake that they only want to. We should only buy things that we only need for our everyday living. People should also learn to conserve energy, specifically electrical energy and water resources. Distributing water and electricity to each household uses a lot of energy and resources too. The wastes should be properly disposed and recycled.

It is a wrong mind set that we should work as a whole for this problem. We should start individually because if we wait for someone to start what should to save our planet from destruction, when will we start then? Little by little, we could change our way of living, inspiring others to do the same. We should wake up and look what is happening beyond the things we see normally everyday. If you don’t do anything today, when will you start? When the world is no longer suitable for living? Think about it and ACT!