Pangasinan’s Icons

SAY Pangasinan and what do people immediately think?

Easily two things: Hundred Islands and bangus (and not necessarily in that order).

But over the last two weeks, we’ve had dreadful events that deeply wound these two things that have become the icons of our province.

First, four people were caught poaching giant clams from the Hundred Islands, which is among the declared Protected Areas in the Philippines.

Three of the culprits were local tourists. Ignorance of the law, which they used to defend their stupid act, is never an excuse and they have been suitably charged. When proven guilty, they face imprisonment and an administrative fine of as much as P40,000 per giant clam poached. Now they will know better how to behave when visiting special places – or any place for that matter.

But even worse is the fourth offender, a resident of Alaminos City, home of the Hundred Islands National Park.

Re-elected Mayor Hernani Braganza, who has been at the forefront of the development of the HINP, was reportedly fuming mad over the incidents and called for immediate action against nature’s enemies. We applaud that reaction. We should all be equally furious. A reasonable and discerning anger is a positive emotion.

Then this week, a bangus fishkill tragedy – similar to what happened in Bolinao in 2002 wherein damages were estimated at half a billion pesos – struck the town of Anda and has also again affected parts of Bolinao. The toll this time is about P100 million.

The erratic weather pattern of extreme heat and rain is partly to blame. But come to think of it, isn’t it that our disturbed climate conditions is man-made? The fish pen and fish cage owners are not blameless either. In their avarice, they overstocked their pens. They ended up instead with nothing but a mountain of dead bangus that they have irresponsibly left for the poor local government lead by Mayor Nestor Pulido to sort out. Such an awful waste.

We are an old province but very young still on the concept of environmental protection and sustainability.

Let’s start growing up.

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