Local rivers said to be the tears of two lovers separated by fate, imbued with the memory of romance, are declared biologically dead due to industrial waste. Ancestral lands, held sacred for generations by Indigenous people, are bulldozed to make room for malls and subdivisions. Mountains that protect us from the rage of typhoons, rich in biodiversity and cultural life, home of people, animals, plants, and spirits—sold to foreign interests and destroyed to make way for a dam, instead of rehabilitating existing structures.
One afternoon, as I walked home, a tricycle passed by, and whoever was in it threw out a fast food paper bag containing their trash into the street. Another day, as I biked around, something poked my foot and wounded me—it was a used barbecue stick. I had to get an anti-tetanus shot. Drivers on our major roads would open their windows to throw candy wrappers and used-up cigarettes. What ever happened to “Tapat ko, linis ko?” And, if today’s adults continue to do this, how can they expect the next generation to care for our planet?
Caring for the earth should be common sense. We live on this planet, we need its resources to survive, and if we want to continue being healthy and living full lives with the people we love, it is in our best interest to make sure our air remains breathable, our water remains drinkable, our food remains unpolluted, and our trees remain strong and thriving to protect us from typhoons, flash floods, and landslides.
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Yes, we can pull religious references, of God instructing us to be stewards of nature, of the late Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si,” and we can always cite existing local and global legal efforts that aim to mitigate environmental collapse (e.g. Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Writ of Kalikasan, etc.). But so long as all this sounds like someone else is preaching at us (pangaral), it will forever feel external and foreign, and we will continue to resist it. And while we continue to avoid our responsibility (pananagutan) to keeping our world livable, the interests of big businesses are prioritized, and they are free to continue carving out mountains, dumping trash in our water, and turning vibrant forests into gaudy gated villages. Meanwhile, news outlets continue to report how environmental activists and Indigenous leaders are being hunted down, captured, and disappeared.
We are not stupid; we are just really busy. Having to know the latest carbon emission numbers, keeping aware of the percentage of microplastics in my body right now, having to buy reusable straws… “Jusko, ang dami ko nang iniisip, dumagdag pa kayo!”
The truth is that living in a “nature-friendly” way tends to be expensive, especially compared to the cheap, toxic plastic waste that is just enough to keep us going on a daily basis. The challenge for scientists, economists, and policy-makers today is to build and maintain intuitive systems we can easily follow, that will make it just an everyday fact of life to be nature-friendly. This is an actionable, large-scale problem, but it is also a personal, psychological one. Because as long as our mindsets remain stuck in a damaging loop of having to dominate nature and take everything it can give, we will end up with nothing, and those who gorge themselves today with the resources they hoard will eventually also starve to death.
Should we leave the Earth for Mars? Sure, if you are a billionaire, and then you can do the same unsustainable things there. This mindset is parasitic. We are no longer friends to Nature—and I write her now as a name, not just as a noun, because she is alive. She is the goddess who birthed us, the home that made us who we are, the mother that fed and embraced us.
“Environmentalism” was never alien to our Indigenous experience! When it floods in a community, the elders might say, “Ah, see, that is our gaba because we have been throwing trash in the nearby river.” My mother raised me with the fear of gaba, which is the Bisaya term for a kind of cosmic punishment for disrespecting people and nature. (It is similar to how we popularly understand “karma.”) Gaba can manifest in any way, but I always believed it would be a stomachache, especially if I waste my food. Nature is alive, and apparently she holds grudges.
The life of Nature is felt in the spirits we interact with—what we call “animism” is really just a sensitivity to the invisible forces around us. The solemn air of ancient trees in lonely streets, the patience of old rocks and dirt mounds, the playful energy of gardens and abandoned lots—we call them laman-lupa (contents, laman, of the earth), nuno (from “ninuno,” or ancestor), anito (same linguistic root as “tao”), and diwata (same linguistic root as “divinity”). When we pass hurriedly through crowds, we duck and say, “Makikiraan po!” In very much the same way, we tell the spirits, “Tabi tabi po” or “Bari bari apo” when we pass through spiritually charged places. Kilalanin mo binabangga mo, especially if they are forces way more ancient than our grandparents’ grandparents.
This relationship with spirits is really just an extension of pakikipagkapwa. The way we feel with people (pakikiramdam) is the same mindfulness we can give our environment. Once we learn to treat Nature not merely as a soulless factory of consumable products, but rather as a person (in the collective, spiritual sense), this attitude can inform the policies we create. We need not search too far away, because Indigenous communities here have been doing sustainable practices for generations.
We are not separate from nature, they would say. We are a part of it, and it is possible (and practical) to live with Nature, to enjoy her gifts, while also passing this wisdom onto future generations. Indigenous practices, such as the Lapat system, can definitely be integrated into our mainstream social rituals, like any other thing we already participate in today. Maybe, when we stop thinking that “modernity” is equivalent to the total domination of Nature and the greedy extraction of her gifts, we can finally stop living like a malignant cancer on this planet. At its core, modernity is really just about making things more convenient and more livable, especially within the context of how a particular culture already lives. And this makes the most sense within a societal system where people treat their environment as an ally, rather than subdue it like an enemy or command it like a slave. Only then can we regain our good health and reclaim our destiny as part of Nature, and not apart from it.
