What was supposed to be a trip down memory lane of my childhood in the laid-back town of Rodriguez (formerly Montalaban) became a traveler's reality immersion of the sad state of neglect in the impoverished sitio of Wawa.
The first time I visited this beautiful place was during my growing up years as a child in the closing years of the 1970's. Martial Law was at its zenith and is on its descent towards eradication. My Dad being an avid historian, often brings the family here because of his fascination of the historical if not the mythological significance of the twin peaks cleaved by millions of years of hydrologic attrition and eventually shackled by a seemingly impregnable anthropogenic structure built during the American era which today proudly stands as the symbol of the town's entrance arch that greets incognizant visitors.
As a child, my primal interest is the Wawa river with its crystal clear water teeming with small 3-inch freshwater swordfishes fast swimming against the rapid current of the river. I would immerse myself in overwhelming joy as I set the boundary of my territory, picking out a cool spot surrounded by boulders deep enough to frolic and attempt to catch fish. All of these are gone now as the water became murky due to the establishment of animal farms upstream and the accelerated the rate of erosion and siltation of the river due to deforestation caused by pressures of a growing population upstream,
But still the main attraction of the place is the Wawa Dam, a weir dam where there are no floodgates and water freely overflows on the top when it reaches the brim. It was built by the Americans during the period when the Philippines, a colony of Spain was turned over to the Americans. Its purpose is to serve as the main source of potable water for Manila. When the liberation of the Philippines was underway in the closing years of World War II, the retreating Japanese entrenched themselves in the rocky terrain of the gorge and was one of the last Japanese stronghold to surrender at the end of the war. The dam is an environmentally controversial structure because of the environmental impacts it creates when large tracts of virgin forest is submerged in order to store huge volume of water but this is just one of the many necessary evils that we have to live with in order for human life to fluorish. The Wawa Dam has long been abandoned ever since the La Mesa Dam took over its role as the main reservoir for the Greater Manila Area but government planners are still eyeing the structure as an option in response to the looming water crisis in the years ahead.
A brief trek to the dam will make you realize that the place is far from being ideal as a tourist destination nor has it changed the way of life of its inhabitants. After more than 40 years since I last set foot on this place, I was expecting a more urbanized, developed place where toursim should have uplifted the lives of the people here. Sadly, things have changed for the worse. Life was simple way back then. People were not well-off during those times, but you don't feel an atmosphere of depression among the local inhabitants.
But today, there are more makeshift dwellings, more people, obviously no systematic drainage, sewerage and septic system and unpaved roads giving you a clear image of what it looks like when the ground is soaking wet with mud. Before reaching the dam, the jubilant feeling of excitement and anticipation of seeing the dam was extinguished by an atmosphere of depression and pity towards the residents of the place. Children were gambling with coin games, men just drink in front of their shanties unperturbed by our presence as we passed by and wet markets abound the place where their effluents simply trickle across the road and into the river.
Despite the ugly revelation of the place, the scenery still captivates visitors who will not let the chance to pass and will still stop on several occasion to take a picture of a beautiful scene. However, when stopping to take pictures especially along the cliffside path that was carved out on the vertical wall of the mountain, you will find yourself repeatedly pulling over to the side of the
cracked pavement to make way for a non-stop parade of downhill or outgoing apparently minor and adult men —each one
hauling enormous bundles of charcoal over their backs or heads. The loads look
precariously fastened on, but the "Charc-haulers" as I call them, navigate the winding, often muddy and slippery terrain at a fast, steady,
deliberate pace. These charcoal-haulers are coming from the front lines of Rodriguez's worsening deforestation epidemic, and they will travel great
distances with their burden to the nearest market hub, where they'll sell each bundle for a meager amount enough for a day's hand-to-mouth sustenance.
The deluge spawned by Typhoon Ondoy in the Marikina Valley on the fateful day of September 26, 2010 was attributed to the rains that had concentrated its downpour in the mountains of Rodriguez and San Mateo. The two towns of Rizal are undoubtedly the sites of the biggest gravel and sand quarry that provides much of Greater Manila's construction needs, They are also the sites of the biggest landfills that receive the bulk of Metro Manila's refuse. All these conditions together with the fact that the mountains around it are denuded is the perfect formula for a disaster. When I last visited the place in 2007, charcoal was not the main livelihood of the people back then but rattan hauling, which is still abundant in the mountains. But when rattan population declined due to rampant harvesting and the DENR started enforcing a ban on rattan extraction, people resorted to charcoal-making because it passes scrutiny by government regulators simply because they are not carrying lumber out of the forest.
The burdensome hauling of these notorious global warmers occurs only after the men create
the charcoal themselves, and package it up. That entire process includes felling the
trees, chopping them up, burning them in a kiln, and acquiring rice sacks to
hold the charcoal. After which they transport it downstream via bamboo rafts where they disembark at the Wawa Dam and start the downhill hauling on their back or heads with 2-3 sacks per person in one trip alone.
The cycle of destruction continues upstream as the trees ran out in a particular place, the charcoal makers gradually move upstream where there is still fresh supply of trees and subsequently, the travel distance and time takes longer than before. I do not have any statistics yet on this trade, but I feel that a huge percent of the immediate local population earn their income from this way of life.
We are all guilty of allowing this trade to fluorish because of the demand that we create if we eat charcoal-cooked food whether we cooked the food ourselves or order charcoal-grilled food in our favorite restaurant. A huge percentage of Filipinos still patronize charcoal cooking. Almost everyone buys it in the market because its the cheapest and most readily available cooking fuel. And it's that demand for charcoal that's feeding the
plague of deforestation in Rodriguez or anywhere throughout the country, where thick forests are razed at an
increasingly alarming rate just for the charcoal alone.
The people of sitio Wawa have long been suffering from poverty and it doesn't seem that the local government is providing an alternative source of livelihood for these people in order for them to deviate from destroying their very habitat. But instead, insult was added further to injury when we were completely beset by an olympic-size swimming pool constructed smack in the middle of the path leading to the dam. I do not know the rationale for this swimming pool whether this is the solution to the poverty plight of the people or just another folly of a politician trying to gain the votes of the less-informed majority. At this point, whatever its purpose will be, the children are enjoying playing in this empty pool for the moment together will all the safety risks that its slippery tiles poses on the unmindful youth.
The Wawa Dam is not a hopeless case. The beauty that emanates from the dam and the surrounding forest is still enough to captivate and satisfy a yearning eye for nature. It can be restored and developed and can even outmatch Villa Escudero in terms of its awesome power, huge boulders and a picnic haven for tourists, local and foreign. The local government should see that the natural resources they have can remain untapped indefinitely for future generations to enjoy by converting it into a nature sanctuary rather than extracting the resources because they already have a gold mine in their hands that is already kissing their very noses and yet are unable to see. There might be political dynamics that are preventing this from happening but without the political will, it will never come to fruition.
I've long had a lifestyle change in not eating charcoal-grilled foods because it is a scientific fact that many of the burn residues that gets into the food eventually enters our body carrying a variety of toxins that can lead to cancer. And since I am already afflicted with this life-changing disease, it was hightime for a radical change in my diet. In a time where the consequences of climate change is slowly revealing itself to us due to the accelerated global warming brought about by our indiscriminate discharge of carbon into the atmosphere, we need to change our mindset toward patronizing charcoal cooking. It needs to be stopped at once. I remember a anonymous phrase by an apparent environmental activist. "If you truly care for the environment, be an activist. It's not enough to say that the river is dirty. You have to go to the river and clean it up" In analogy, if we stop patronizing charcoal, we stop the demand. When the demand for charcoal is gone, the felling of trees for charcoal will stop too! Be active and help stop it!
