Like any other tragedy, the earthquake struck when no one expected it.“It was a sunny morning,” Carla Manganteng, 29, told CoverStory by phone from Lagangilang, Abra. “I was in my neighbor’s house when suddenly the ground shook so violently. We immediately called everyone, told them to run outside, to a nearby open area.” Lagangilang is...
Category: Environment
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Among the garbage in raging waters
Sleep, pretty darling, do not cry/And I will sing a lullaby… — “Golden Slumbers” by the Beatles Two girls were killed in the flash floods on July 15-16, according to the initial reports. Like many an afternoon in the metro in this warm season, dark sky and distant thunder heralded the rain that steadily became...
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Filipino Geologist elected to UN body on world’s seabed resources management, protection
A Filipino geologist is joining a select panel of experts helping a United Nations (UN) agency in its mission to manage and protect the world’s seabed resources in areas beyond national jurisdiction (the Area). Mario Juan Aurelio, 57, a professor at the University of the Philippines (UP), former director of the UP National Institute of...
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Birds flying into manmade things
One recent morning, I saw a bright yellow kilyawan (black-naped oriole) lying dead beside our house. It happened periodically, over the years, that flying birds of various species would smash into our glass panes while in flight. When I looked up the reason, I learned it is because they mistake the sky or trees reflected on...
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Masbate’s three-legged coconut tree spurs scientific interest
Several decades since I defended my doctoral dissertation, my visits to Masbate had been few and far between, until I started preparing for a three-week field work on the island for my incoming class of geology seniors in July. On June 10, I had the chance to visit an oddly shaped coconut tree in Matugnao...
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Concerns over P50-B dam project emerge after Laguna activist’s arrest
SAN PEDRO CITY—The arrest of environmental activist Vertudes “Daisy” Macapanpan has directed public attention to a larger issue involving a P50-billion dam project in the small, quiet town of Pakil in Laguna. (Concerns over P50-B dam project…) Macapanpan, 69, has been opposing the Ahunan pumped storage hydropower facility on fears that its construction on a...
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Retelling the natural hazards, dangers of the Bataan nuclear power plant
Nuclear energy first came to the Philippines in 1958 when the United States gifted the Philippines with a nuclear fission reactor. The government then established the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission (Paec) on the University of the Philippines’ Diliman campus. The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), on the other hand, was approved by the Marcos regime...
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‘Harvest Moon’: Stories, poems and photos of climate crisis
In a world where changes are increasingly disruptive, creative works matter more than ever, not just to better understand our complex reality through stories, but also because stories shape our imagination and inspire the future. “Harvest Moon is a book that heeds the call to reimagine how we are going to survive and thrive in...
