Couponers, pilgrims and Earth Day

One of my favorite shows on cable TV is called “Extreme Couponing.” It’s about how some Americans—mostly housewives, although some men, including a college student, have also been featured—dedicate themselves to snipping discount coupons from newspapers, magazines and booklets, collecting these, then using the coupons to bag grocery items at discounted rates of up to 90 percent.

They’re suspenseful, those scenes in which the total amount in the cash registers steadily fall as each coupon passes the cashier’s scanner. Often, even if the total reaches hundreds of dollars, the extreme couponer ends up paying less than $20. In one episode, a shopper even ended up being owed a few cents by the supermarket, even if she left with a small train of shopping carts filled to the brim.

If you’re wondering where all that merchandise goes, the show also visits what the couponers call their “stockpile”—shelves, cabinets, drawers, tables and every available space filled with their shopping loot. The stockpile tour often leaves me in shock and awe: dozens of deodorants, rows and rows of spaghetti sauce, a mini-forest of laundry detergents and fabric softeners. I mean, how much stuff does one person, one family need?

In a few shows, some couponers have shown another motivation for their shopping sprees: They donate their loot to groups that operate food banks or deliver essentials to poor or homeless families. In the most recent show I saw, a husband who was getting sick and tired of having his home overrun with the growing stockpile, issued an ultimatum. If his wife needed to scratch her shopping itch, she could go to the supermarket and use her coupons but would have to promise to donate the entire haul to a charity. In the supermarket, the wife suddenly stops and starts tearing at the thought that none of her bargain buys would go to build up her already enormous stockpile. I wanted to bop her on the head with a jug of detergent.

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The extreme couponers came to mind when I read reports on the Easter “urbi et

orbi” message of Pope Francis, where he denounced “immense wastefulness” in the world “while many go hungry.”

I thought back to the basements, kitchens and sometimes even bedrooms and living rooms in the homes of the extreme couponers. They could live off the goods for a year or so and not even need to buy one more item, but some of the featured couponers said they make trips to the supermarket once a week!

Clearly it’s no longer need that drives them to collect coupons, spend their days snipping and classifying, and shop for groceries for as long as five hours a trip. Some even pose for pictures with their loot—keeping the proof of their couponing abilities in an album.

Is it avarice? How many deodorants does a person need in a week? Is it the need to show one’s ability to put one over commercial interests? One or two successful shopping sorties should have proven that already. Is it simply an incessant need and hunger for that moment when everyone’s eyes at the take-out lines are on you, amazed at the fantastic discounts you’re getting? Probably. Fame and admiration can be addicting.

I don’t know if Pope Francis watches “Extreme Couponing,” or even those food shows where personalities take on the challenge to finish humongous burgers or fiery chilis. But even if he doesn’t, he makes a good point. Some folks’ hunger may have nothing to do with others’ greed. But the  comparison and contrast  is scandalous and immoral.

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Consumerism surely has something to do with why we observe “Earth Day” today. Years ago, the occasion seemed to be nothing more than a “feel good” moment when we celebrate nature and express gratitude for its abundance.

But these days, in the wake of global warming and its consequences, and the damage being done to our forests, water sources, soil, seas and air quality, Earth Day is becoming as much a day of protest as of celebration.

Sen. Loren Legarda, who chairs the Senate committee on the environment, chose to focus her Earth Day message on the need to protect our oceans and the vast diversity of creatures dependent on them.

“We are fortunate to have been blessed with abundant natural resources. In fact, we are one of the 17 megadiverse countries, home to majority of Earth’s species. Unfortunately, we are also one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots, with a large number of species that are endangered or threatened with extinction,” she lamented.

The country has one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems, Legarda pointed out, including “extensive coral reefs, sea-grass beds and dense mangroves.” But even with such rich resources, she noted, “about 3.9 million families still experience hunger,” while families living in coastal communities are among the poorest in the country.

Like the Pope, she urged Filipinos to “turn away” from what she called “extractive and consumptive way of living.”

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And as a final note, the Ecowaste Coalition once again laments and sharply criticizes the “widespread littering” committed by religious pilgrims walking from spots of Metro Manila up to the Antipolo Shrine during the Holy Week.

Aileen Lucero, Ecowaste’s national coordinator, described the “massive littering of major streets by pilgrims who were supposed to fulfill an act of penance” as “unholy, unkind and unacceptable.”

“Why dirty the environment with garbage as we beg for forgiveness for our sins and renew our faith?  Why spoil the air with cigarette smoke as we seek reconciliation with the Lord?” she asked.

Why indeed?