Grandchildren’s grey hair

“What made us dream he would comb grey hair?” Irish poet and 1923 Nobel Laureate William Butler Yeats wrote of a friend—and the “discourtesy of death.” A week after Tropical Storm “Sendong” hit, Mindanao deaths bolted to 1,249.

When New Year dawns, other victims won’t “comb grey hair.” Exhausted rescue workers still stumble across bodies  in the muck and debris. “Even the (corpse) sniffing dogs are tired,” regional disaster council chief Ana Caneda noted.

New Year’s Day 2012 will find more than 376,000 people displaced by the storm and floods. Almost 55,000 people still huddle in crowded makeshift evacuation centers in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, as government scrambles to build homes. Potable water is in short supply.

No major disease outbreak at evacuation centers has occurred. Knock on wood. Credit the swift help by citizens, civic and church groups, plus aid agencies.

A low pressure area, a cold front and rains, however, persisted. They unleashed mudslides, this time across a wider swath. Leyte, northern Negros Occidental, Capiz and cities like Bacolod and Valencia in Bukidnon were hit. Few heeded the first signals of climate change. The World Meteorological Organization notes 2001 through 2010 has been the “warmest decade.” Glaciers are melting and ever warmer sea levels are rising.

A month into the Aquino presidency, the Climate Change Congress of the Philippines, led by Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, warned about impending weather threats, Inquirer recalled. Ledesma repeated the caution, in a Malacañang antipoverty conference. Two weeks later, Sendong struck, inflicting the worst damage in 12 years.

On New Year’s Eve, the itch to peer ahead reaches fever pitch. Many leaders’ line-of-sight, however, ends at larger Internal Revenue Allotment slabs or the 2013 elections. Discerning the future has never been one of man’s special strengths.

“Crystal-balling” is about making educated guesses of what lies beyond. From today’s realities, one sifts trends likely to endure—and reshape tomorrow. “In today, tomorrow already walks.”

Leaf through the new Human Development Report (HDR), titled “Sustainability and Equity.” We rank 112 among 187 countries analyzed. Aside from tools like gross national product, the indices factor in life expectancy, health and education. This year, HDR uses those gauges in the context of ecological stress.

“A 10-percent increase in the number of people affected by an extreme weather event reduces a country’s human development (ranking) by 2 percent,” says this just published United Nations Development Programme study. Freedoms of people today must expand “while making reasonable efforts to avoid compromising those of future generations.”

Average life expectancy for a Filipino today is over 69 years, similar to an Iraqi. There are stark differences in this “threshold at which all other hopes begin.” Like Jamaicans, La Union residents have life expectancy of 74 years. In contrast, the 55 years for Joloanos resemble that of Rwandans.

More comb grey hair in Vietnam or Sri Lanka. Life expectancy there now crests at 75. It is 81 for a Singaporean and 83 for a Japanese. “That a man’s reach should exceed his grasp/ Or what’s a heaven for?”

Overall adult literacy (95 percent) smudges “black holes” like Maguindanao. Warlord rule reduced 44 out of every 100 residents into “no-read-no-writes.” That’s the highest functional illiteracy rate for 77 provinces, notes the Philippine Human Development Report. In Laguna, seven are illiterates out of every 100 residents.

Chronic hunger here stunts 34 out of every 100  kids under 5 years old. That’s on par with  Equatorial Guinea. Maternal death rates are on level with Paraguay at 94 out of every 1,000. Only 62 out of every 100 Filipino mothers had skilled medical personnel in attendance at birth—the level in Guatemala.

HDR links traditional gauges with wellbeing  or insecurity from environmental impact. Philippines has only a fifth of Malaysia’s renewable water resources. Yet, we pump 17 percent of that, like Mexico. Shrinkage in forest is a staggering 25 percent. Illegally cut logs thus crushed many Mindanao victims.

“For a healthy, well functioning environment…enabling institutions are needed, including a fair and independent judiciary and the right to information,” the UN says. (Unlike the Corona Supreme Court or Aquino’s gutting of the Freedom of Information bill?)

“For ordinary folk, the ultimate new year question is simpler,” Sun Star said. “Will life become better for us? Will more of us live to comb grey hair?” These require a U-turn from  the Arroyo administration policies.

A subservient ombudsman, meanwhile, has been replaced by the towering  former Justice Conchita Carpio Morales. Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is under hospital arrest. In the new year, the anti-graft court will raffle three giant sleaze cases filed by the Ombudsman against former President Arroyo, former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and other officials for the botched National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with Chinese telecommunications firm, ZTE Corp. And the impeachment trial against Chief Justice Renato Corona begins.

The December 2011 survey by Social Weather Stations found that President Aquino continues to enjoy backing across all socio-economic classes. He reaped a “very good” net satisfaction score of +58, or 71 percent satisfied. Only 13 percent was dissatisfied.

That provides a start, so our grandchildren may comb grey hair. “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language./ And next year’s words await another’s voice./ And to make an end is to make a beginning,” T.S. Eliot said.

(Email: juan_mercado77@yahoo.com)