A pebble in the water
Environmentalist Dr. Kristin Treñas, in a text message the other day, questioned why the recent launching of the Metro Iloilo Airshed Governing Board was preceded by a caravan. “They are contradicting themselves,” part of her text message reads. “Do they really know what they are doing?”
The good pediatrician was right. That caravan was not only unnecessary but it was entirely inappropriate for it only contributed more harmful gases to the atmosphere, rendering as useless the board’s main purpose which is to address climate change. An appropriate activity to launch the project would have been a parade or a bikathon where there would be no emissions.
Motor vehicles are the biggest source of air pollution in the Philippines, where over four million of these choke the roads. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) estimates that motor vehicles are responsible for up to 70 percent of air pollution in the country.
On the other hand, poor air quality accounts for five percent of all reported disease cases and four percent of all reported deaths in the country, says a World Bank study. This is said to cost the Philippines P6.76 billion per year in health expenditures and lost income. Urban residents are the ones most vulnerable to air pollution-related illnesses, as levels of particulate matter are estimated to be three times higher in urban areas than in rural areas.
This is one reason why urban Metro Iloilo has been designated as one of the 18 airsheds in the country, where the Metro Iloilo Airshed Governing Board is to oversee the formulation and implementation of measures that will improve air quality over the region that comprises Iloilo City and the adjacent towns of Leganes, Oton, Pavia and San Miguel.
The Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999 requires the creation of airshed governing boards that are tasked to formulate policies, prepare a common action plan, coordinate functions among its members and submit and publish an annual Air Quality Status Report for each airshed to keep citizens informed of the kind of air they are breathing.
Airshed are areas that have a similar climate, meteorology and topology which affect the interchange and diffusion of pollutants in the atmosphere or areas which share common interest or face similar development programs, prospects or problems.
The airshed governing board would aid the DENR in checking air quality, setting up emission standards, determining penalties for violators in a particular airshed, as well as drawing up anti-pollution programs suited for a given area, which may vary from one airshed to another.
Iloilo City is a critical area as far as air pollution is concerned because it hosts one of the biggest motorized transport industries in the Philippines, emitting huge volumes of carbon dioxide every day. There are around 68,000 registered motor vehicles and more than 10,000 registered motorcycles mostly used as tricycles in Iloilo City, according to the Land Transportation, Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB).
But when it implemented its Perimeter Boundary Ordinance (PBO) in 2005 to regulate the entry of provincial public utility jeepneys and buses into the city, Iloilo City had not only decongested its roads but also improved its air quality.
Data from the Traffic Management and Engineering Unit (TMEU) showed that based on a 12-hour per day operation, the PBO has restricted 972 jeepneys into the city. The City Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) says the move to limit the entry of provincial jeepneys into the city results to a fuel savings of 9,225 liters a day and prevents emission of 24,418 liters of carbon dioxide for the same duration.
That is why, just a year after the PBO’s implementation, the Canada-based International Council for Local Environment Initiatives (ICLEI) commended Iloilo City for the measure. The logic is simple – lesser vehicles running, lesser greenhouse gas emissions.
Measures to address climate change take so many forms in the same manner as those actions that aggravate this grim phenomenon. And a caravan to launch an airshed governing board? Let’s just hope the next time another initiative to address climate change is launched, they won’t be burning effigies of illegal loggers.
As a line in the song Face Down goes, “A pebble in the water makes a ripple effect. Every action in this world will bear a consequence.”
Nereo C. Lujan
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