Let’s start with a prayer: “By the light and truth of Jesus, I lift my loved one to You. By the hope of the Redeemer, I pray for Your healing power to break through. By the peace and the grace of the Living One, I place them safely in Your care. By the death and resurrection of the King of Kings,may Your restoration now flow through my prayers. By the greatest gift of love ever known, help me care for them as You would do. By the hope and strength of the living God, I place my trust and faith in You.”
It was the great English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge who penned in his literary masterpiece, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” the unforgettable line, “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink”, about hapless sailors whose cursed ship is floating aimlessly in the middle of the ocean, if I remember correctly.
Anyway, our top local bossings have banged the gong warning residents of an impending water shortage in the Summer Capital due to a confluence of natural and man-made reasons. This is a serious matter indeed since we use the precious resource in our daily lives like in our cooking, washing of clothes and cars, bathing ourselves and pets, watering our plants, and many more.
If you still don’t get the hint, water is life. What is that phrase again where it claims that human beings, will perish without food in three weeks; in three days, without water; and in three minutes without air? If this does not emphasize the importance of water, I don’t know what will.
As our hard-working and efficient honorable officials are doing their best in crafting strategies to solve this problem, it is incumbent upon all of us to do our share in conserving this life-giving resource and avoid wasting it. After all, we will all be affected negatively should our water supply suddenly runs dry. Huwag naman po sana.
This near-sighted Ibaloy writer echoes the appeal of our beloved City Hall bossings that government cannot do it alone. Whether we are taxpayers or not, we should all be part in the solution of this problem or in any other problem, for that matter, since Baguio is our home. If not, we should at least not become part of the problem. So, please conserve water. It is life.
Here’s “Invisible, Part I” by Gabriel Baban Keith: “Are you an Ibaloy in Baguio?/ Then go stand in a corner and shut up./ How dare you speak up when you belong to a tiny, fractured, silent, minority./Shyness, meekness, disunity/ has made your tribe invisible./ This is not the Baguio you used to know./ It now belongs to outsiders who are united,/ aggressive, connected, confident, loud./ The Kafagway, Bag-iw, Baguio/ of your ancestors who dreamed only of kanyaw/ and tafey vanished a long time ago./ Are you an Ibaloy in Baguio?/ Then go stand in a corner and shut up.”
May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ continue to bless and keep us all safe.
