Trashed

What to do with a problem like someone else’s trash fouling up your home? You’d throw a fit, surely, and threaten to sue the owners if they refuse to take back the garbage they had dumped on your doorstep. You’d raise a stink and tell other people in the neighborhood to beware, the putrid pile may be headed their way, too. And, if the owners of the waste profess to be a firm adherent of healthy environmental practices at home while recklessly offloading their refuse in other places, you’d call them out on their hypocrisy.

Ah, but that behavior is for reasonable people with integrity and self-respect. The Philippines is apparently lacking in those characteristics, because, on top of having to suffer the humiliation of receiving 50 containers of alleged scrap material from Canada that turned out to be rotting household waste (including used adult diapers) meant to be disposed of here rather than in that country’s pristine backyard, the Aquino administration has done nothing about the trash even after two years.

Or, rather, it has—but only to the further detriment of the country and its people: According to reports, 29 of the 50 containers have been emptied of their rotten contents in a sanitary landfill in Capas, Tarlac. The rest remains at the Port of Manila, where it has sat festering since June 2013.

That the stinking mass has found its way to President Aquino’s home province is perhaps the perfectly ironic tradeoff given his administration’s nonresponse to this outrageous act by a friendly foreign country. Instead of reiterating the demand for Canada to take its refuse back, the administration quietly dropped the matter ahead of Mr. Aquino’s state visit to that country last May, ostensibly to preserve diplomatic relations. It appeared that Malacañang preferred Filipinos to suffer the malodorous dump than confront Canada for its brazen double standards.

That country, after all, has some of the world’s most progressive environmental laws in place, to ensure the health and welfare of its citizens and to protect its sprawling natural heritage. But that mindset obviously does not extend beyond its borders, judging from the way it could disrespect a poor country like the Philippines by burdening it with its effluvia. Still, laying aside Canada’s exploitative behavior, there is the Philippines’ astounding passivity: For two years it failed to move the trash off its premises. Now it has thrown in the towel by agreeing to dispose of the junk in its own already fragile, cramped, and highly populated interiors.

Halfway across the globe, another country is hearing exhortations about the need to protect the environment and share its resources with all. Pope Francis punctuated his arrival in Ecuador—the second time the Argentine Pontiff has traveled to his home continent of South America—with a speech stressing that taking better care of the planet is everyone’s duty, and that being indifferent is no longer an option given the ragged state of humanity’s only home.

“It is wrong to turn aside from what is happening all around us, as if certain situations did not exist or have nothing to do with our lives,” the Pope said. “We are invited to care for [the planet], to protect it, to be its guardians. Nowadays we are increasingly aware of how important this is. It is no longer a mere recommendation, but rather a requirement…”

As Reuters pointed out, the “choice of Ecuador to make his first post-encyclical speeches on the environment was not casual. Ecuador is heavily reliant on oil and mining while boasting some of the world’s greatest biodiversity including the Galapagos Islands, on which Charles Darwin formulated his ideas on evolution.”

The Philippines could well be Ecuador, with more than 80 percent of the population identifying themselves as Catholic (79 percent in Ecuador’s case), and with some of the most stunning wildlife and ecology in the world, but also threatened by rampant commercialization and big business. Could the Pope’s words make a difference in the two countries? In the Philippines’ case, it seems to be failing so far. It can’t even stand up against the ultimate insult of being literally trashed by another country. When will it say “Enough”?