How To Change The World #1.1: The Stinky Bridge, A Commons (Case Study and Call To Action)

The Stinky Bridge, A Commons (Case Study & Call To Action) 2014 06-29 v1 light from Justine Tajonera

Please do leave a comment regarding information on how to mobilize local government or local organizations for a clean up of this small polluted creek.

Note: I am currently taking up a course boldly called How To Change The World offered by Wesleyan University (offered for free through Coursera.org) and taught by Wesleyan University President, Michael S. Roth. It tackles major issues facing humanity and it is based on discussions brought up during the 2013 Social Good Summit in NY. I am putting up all my assignments on my blog as well.

NaPoWriMo#22: Summer

Summer
By Justine C. Tajonera

It is one of the hottest summers I remember,
though the yellow blooms of April Showers have
arrived as expected. Growing up so close to the sea,
I yearn for the beach this season. But I've been warned
off one of our islands: Escherichia coli in the water. I think
of the summers left for my children. Can we plant enough
trees for them to cover mountain sides and hills
that have given way to landslides? Even in my lifetime
I have never seen a clean river in the city. Will they be
forever escaping their homes to get a breath of air?
We pick strawberries as tourists on the mountain up North.
Will they ever know a life close to the earth, close to
the water? What I remember are third quarter storms
that flood cities and sweep away children from their
mothers. We wait out this summer heat, expecting
drought, not knowing if the coming rains will be worse
this year. I imagine the engines ceasing, silence falling
over the streets, seeds sprouting beneath ruins. Children
are playing by a river in Pasig and families play music
with bamboo and brass instruments, eating feasts from
their gardens, meditating on new stories of the summer.

NaPoWriMo#6: Baguio

Baguio
By Justine C. Tajonera

I've forgotten how the road had made
us dizzy with its zigzags. I point out to the children
that there are hardly any waterfalls anymore
echoing my parents who pointed out the waterfalls,
decades ago, noting how there were less of them.
We watch the mountain reveal itself. It has ugly
scars of gravel, the remnants of landslides. We
whisper quietly, between us, that we will never travel
here in the rainy season. The mountainsides are
perilously close to the roads, there is nothing much
to hold them back. We enter the city and we are
surprised (but we shouldn't be) that whole mountains
are pocked with houses, sandwiched one on top
of the other. I see the familiar poem on fading signboards
about how only God can make a tree. Us fools,
us fools, we snake into the heart of the city,
traffic already building up at nine in the morning.