Category: Environment

This is our planet. Let’s work together to secure and sustain it.

Flooding in Manila following Typhoon Gaemi: Déjà vu all over again!

July 24, 2024 benign0 6 Comments

Journalists “reporting” on the devastation wrought by the passing of Typhoon Gaemi (along with southwest monsoon rains) may as well be copy-and-paste jobs. After all, there is a trove of past news reports on typhoons (and even minor weather disturbances) hitting the Philippines and causing disproportionate devastation. Indeed, what stands out is the embarrassing sameness…

Development, Environment

Here’s What’s Going On Up At Boracay’s Mt. Luho and It’s Not What You Were Told

May 9, 2024May 10, 2024 P. Farol 1 Comment

In a smallish Facebook Group called Boracay Island News, a post addressed to the Boracay Community by a certain Victor Jeffery made the rounds asking “What’s going on up at Mt. Luho”. It reads: Angry property disputes have started again at several locations in the Mt Luho area despite many court cases over the past…

Development, Environment

Answering the threats of natural calamities in the Philippines

January 18, 2022 The Unpopular Opinion 8 Comments

Roughly one month has passed since Typhoon Odette devastated various regions of the Philippines, specifically the Visayas islands. Houses, bridges, and harbors were left in ruins, while trees and electrical posts were uprooted. Lifeline accessibility was greatly hampered, with access to electricity and safe drinking water returning only after two days or more. With this…

Development, Environment, Government

Philippine energy policy: more politics, less economics

December 15, 2021December 16, 2021 The Unpopular Opinion 5 Comments

Human civilizations have witnessed and experienced various ups and downs, which ranged from progress, stagnation, to dissolution. These various epochs have been etched in our world history, but the impact of the industrial revolution undoubtedly shaped how we spend our lives for the past couple of centuries. Industrialization began in Britain, where there was a…

Development, Environment, Politics

No justification for Pasig River Expressway (PAREX), project driven more by profit than by public good

September 29, 2021 Ramon Ortoll 6 Comments

The Pasig River Expressway has broken ground and the project has begun in earnest even with the growing opposition to it. The initial furor was over the design that the whole river would be covered by the length of the expressway which runs from east to west from Manila Bay to Laguna De Bay. As…

Business, Development, Environment

Opposition prefers a Philippine sellout to the US over working with China

July 17, 2021 Ramon Ortoll 5 Comments

Appeasement or rapprochement? How it it exactly that you deal with a regional superpower like China? Among Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries, only Vietnam has fought a land and sea conflict against China. But among ASEAN also, Vietnam has the most battle-seasoned military. The Vietnam War ended relatively recently in 1975. In…

Business, Economy, Environment, History

Haiyan (Yolanda) comprehensive rehab plan implemented under Duterte after delays due to Aquino admin snub

June 23, 2021 Ramon Ortoll No Comments

Remember Typhoon Haiyan, a.k.a. Yolanda in 2013? The most powerful supertyphoon to hit the country during the Aquino administration? Much of the blame for the bungled rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction efforts post-Yolanda was borne by Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who was appointed by then President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino as Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery. As…

Environment, Government, History

Hyper-politicised energy sector dooms Filipinos to chronic energy shortage

June 4, 2021 Ramon Ortoll 4 Comments

Interesting that Boo Chanco makes no mention of the elephant in the room; the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). This, considering how, in his PhilSTAR piece today “Power failure” he writes about what he calls “the big elephant in the room” which comes in the form of the question, “how much energy capacity do we…

Business, Economy, Environment