ikeseneres

HOW CAN THE PRODUCTION OF PYROCOAL PREVENT FOREST DENUDATION, REDUCE POVERTY AND INCREASE ENERGY INDEPENDENCE? There is an ugly reality behind the problem of charcoal making in the Philippines. For as long as the so-called kaingeros do not have an alternative source of livelihood, they will continue cutting down trees and burning them to produce charcoal. We can lecture them all day about environmental protection, but hunger often speaks louder than conservation. The obvious alternative is farming by teaching them to grow grains, rootcrops, fruits and vegetables. Thankfully, there is now a less obvious but perhaps more lucrative alternative: the production of pyrocoal. Pyrocoal is essentially charcoal produced from agricultural waste such as rice husks, coconut shells, corn cobs, sugarcane bagasse, and other biomass materials. Instead of cutting trees, we convert farm waste into fuel. This technology addresses three national problems simultaneously: forest denudation, poverty, and ene...

MONITORING AND REPORTING DATA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL NUMBER 1 Sustainable Development Goal Number 1 (SDG 1) has a very noble objective: to "end poverty in all its forms everywhere" by the year 2030. As a founding member of the United Nations, the Philippines has both a legal and moral responsibility to report its progress honestly and accurately. The question is: How do we know if we are really reducing poverty? My first thesis is that all data must come from below. National statistics should not be created through assumptions, projections, or so-called "ceiling estimates." They should be built from actual reports coming from communities. My second thesis is that there is no need to gather new data if reliable data already exists. What we need instead is data integration. Government agencies are already collecting enormous amounts of information. The challenge is not the absence of data but the inability to interconnect and harmonize it. My third thesis is...

HOW COULD WE RECYCLE WASTE PAPER? Nobody seems to be paying enough attention to the recycling of waste paper. Perhaps this is because paper is biodegradable anyway. But I think we are missing the bigger picture. What about the recovery value of waste paper? What about its potential to create jobs, generate new businesses, and contribute to the circular economy? Even if paper eventually decomposes, it can still occupy valuable space in landfills and dumpsites for years before it breaks down. More importantly, every ton of recycled paper means fewer trees cut down to make new paper products. According to environmental studies, recycling one ton of paper can save around 17 mature trees, thousands of gallons of water, and significant amounts of electricity. That is not a small contribution to environmental protection. I have been monitoring technological trends and breakthroughs on the internet, and I have observed that many companies abroad are transforming waste paper into products with ...

HOW COULD WE BRING BACK THE ENVIRONMENTAL OMBUDSMAN? The Environmental Ombudsman is gone, but the environmental problems that justified its creation are still very much with us. To cut a long story short, the Environmental Ombudsman of yore disappeared when Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales left office. The reason is simple: it was created merely through an internal office order and not through an Act of Congress. As a result, when the leadership changed, the watchdog quietly went to sleep. If we want to bring it back this time, we should do it right. The Philippines is not lacking in environmental laws. We have Republic Act No. 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act, and many others. Neither are we lacking in government agencies. We have the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB), local government units, and various regulator...

WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO TO SAVE THE PHILIPPINE EAGLE? ARE WE DOING ENOUGH ALREADY? The short answer is no, we are not doing enough yet. Yes, there have been remarkable successes in Philippine Eagle conservation. From an estimated population of barely a hundred individuals in the 1960s, conservation efforts have reportedly increased the number to about 400 breeding pairs today. The Philippine Eagle Foundation has done admirable work in breeding, rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing eagles back into the wild. But is that enough? I do not think so. Some conservation experts consider 500 breeding individuals as a minimum threshold for relative stability. Personally, I prefer the more rigorous concept of the Minimum Viable Population (MVP) used in conservation biology. For large apex predators such as the Philippine Eagle, the ideal MVP could reach 5,000 individuals or more to ensure long-term survival against disease outbreaks, genetic decline, natural disasters, and environmental changes....

HOW CAN WE ADOPT MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS FASTER THAN USUAL? Every year, thousands of Filipinos die not because there is no treatment available in the world, but because the treatment has not yet reached our shores. This is the painful reality of medical innovation in the Philippines. Foreign breakthroughs usually arrive years late because their entry is left largely to commercial forces. Pharmaceutical companies naturally prioritize bigger and more profitable markets. As a result, Filipino patients often wait five years or more before accessing life-saving technologies already available elsewhere. A perfect example is the breakthrough anti-cancer drug daraxonrasib . Researchers recently presented data showing that this once-daily pill nearly doubled the median survival of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer—from 6.7 months to 13.2 months. Pancreatic cancer has long been one of the deadliest cancers, with a five-year survival rate historically in the single digits. For many oncologis...