Education Secretary Armin Luistro revealed
in an interview that the new basic education curriculum would definitely
include climate change. According to
Luistro, even before tropical storm Sendong happened, schools nationwide have
already intensified their environmental education. In 2008, Republic Act No. 9512, Act to Promote Environmental Education and For
Other Purposes, was enacted. The law specifically directed
the Department of Education and other related agencies to integrate
environmental education in its curricula.
And, as if the law saw it coming, Ondoy happened in 2009 drowning the whole
Metro and nearby provinces. In 2011,
Peping came next, flooding several towns in Bulacan for weeks.
Mother Nature, with all the flashfloods and
the landslides, has finally caught the human’s attention. Although the move
should have been years ago when global warming loomed and started melting the
icebergs that killed Jack and the rest of Titanic, I nevertheless commend the
effort.
Sendong is not solely to blame for the
thousands of deaths and millions of damages.
A friend of mine from Cagayan De Oro said that it was not really the
flood that caused the problem, it was the illegally cut logs from the mountains
that actually did it. He said that although
the flood water was at drowning heights, some households were run over by
hundreds of huge logs. So, yes, this all
human depravity again.
Hopefully, with the integration of environmental
education in the new basic education curriculum, a new breed of humans
develop. For starters, well, I don’t
expect too much, maybe it could breed a new generation of kids actually learning
the use of trash cans. Then for the
really big challenge, we could send those sick illegal loggers back to grade
one. The best of luck to us humans!
Maricor Estrella, Entry #3
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