Dam No Water Equals No Power Equals No Harvest - I Don't See An Upside, Do You?

Call it a warning sign. Well actually it's one of many warning signs that has been constantly ignored.

Earlier the company running Magat Dam in the boundary of Ifugao and Isabela provinces announced that it will shut down operations due to lack of water.

The water level is below the dam's critical level thus the 360-megawatt dam can't generate power nor irrigate the farmlands.

This means that not only will there be less power, resulting in more brownouts, but with no irrigation the farmlands will suffer, further devastating the already precarious existence of farmers.

This will, of course, result in higher electricity prices and agricultural produce prices.

We are quick to blame El Nino for what has happened but why are we not blaming ourselves - and especially the government officials who did not foresee such a thing happening nor did anything to curb the illegal logging that has devastated millions of hectares of watershed areas.

If the watershed areas have been protected this would not have happened. But no, since the politicians and bureaucrats are all money hungry, they allowed themselves to get rich through the illegal logging while at the same time turning a blind eye to the effects it has wrought upon nature.

Sure they say that they are replacing the trees with new seedlings but the thing is those trees that they cut down took decades to mature and to replace it with saplings won't do squat to out current situation.

By the time those trees mature we may already be dead from the drought. But do our government officials listen - heavens no, of course not. If they did it would be a miracle.

Oh wait they do listen - but that's about all they do. Basically, it's in one ear and out the other.

What would it take for our people to wake up from our stupid ways.

Maybe, just maybe it would need the destruction of Metropolitan Manila from flood, blackouts, and drought before we act.

But then again those officials would just fly to the US and escape so even then I doubt if they would care.

Bah!