MOTHER’S DAY has come and gone, but one’s thoughts about mothers never disappear. Although this year’s observance or celebration was subdued than in the past where days before traffic jammed the roads to department stores and supermarkets and restaurants to prepare for Mother’s Day celebration, this time, it was done online, thanks to the wonders of technology. With the indulgence of the readers, I would like to pay tribute of my mother Zeny Raquid-Vibal, from Oas. Albay whose early marriage, ushered in hurried maturation on the lessons of married life and mothered eight (8) children; six boys and two girls (I am the 7th child), whom she raised in strict discipline and upbringing.
On Mother’s Day of all days, I vividly recall why she was our model of selfless generosity. How she, before the lockdown, runs her home like a community coffee shop (long before the notion of community pantry came into view), where neighbors, vendors delivering her fish and vegetable, etc., are treated to warm coffee and a warm greeting. It is no wonder that now she is called Mommy, Nanay or Lola by neighbors and passers-by as a sign of endearment for her welcoming ways. I was told by a delivery-driver that she was the only one who offered him coffee when he delivered our food order for her last May 9. My father, Mafeo, gave her a plaque in a previous Mother’s Day gathering we have, which goes like this: “As a mother, the most caring, giving her best and her last. So that the family will always be first; As a mother, the most hard-working — Denying herself pleasures and rest so the family can have the best; As a Mother, an effective teacher that molded the children’s character and spirituality; As a mother, the most lovable. Deserving honor, love and respect. And irreplaceable, enshrined in the hearts forever, as mothers are forever.”
And speaking of the month of May, the heat index in Dagupan City, Pangasinan, reached 51 degrees Celsius (ºC) at 2 pm Saturday, May 8 – the highest in the country so far for 2021. Heat index is what people “perceive or feel as the temperature affecting their body,” according to the state weather bureau Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA). Scientists have been consistent in pointing out that increasing temperatures due to air pollution is causing climate change. Traditionally we are anticipating May as the time for showers and the onset of rainy days by June, May unfortunately feels even hotter than the country was in early April or Holy Week which I recalled from childhood is usually the hottest days. So, we are today in the new normal just as the pandemic has overturned our lives; climate change is over-turning our future.
This is why reforming our transportation is essential in ensuring our economic growth and the safety of our children in the years and decades ahead. According to US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, “Transportation is a huge driver of carbon emissions” (and hence climate change). “I mean, this is a huge issue for every country, certainly for ours. When I’m talking to counterparts about climate and transportation around the world, we see how these things go together. And in the US, the transportation sector is the single biggest contributor to greenhouse gases. I’m enthusiastic about the implications of that — meaning we are the potentially biggest source of solutions as well. We’re trying to focus on things like transit-oriented development, active transportation, different kinds of mobility — things that are going to make sense even as we have a shifting future and shifting patterns of life, as the pandemic showed us in an accelerated fashion.”
Transportation, given these pandemic times when health safety is a primary concern, is also a health issue as well. Consider the following from a press report: “traffic-related air pollution cuts short an estimated 58,000 American lives every year and causes or exacerbates serious illnesses ranging from childhood asthma to lung cancer, strokes, heart disease and dementia; motor vehicle crashes each year kill an estimated 40,000 Americans and seriously injure 4.5 million; and transportation is now America’s number one source of carbon pollution, with greenhouse emissions from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles surpassing every other source.”
So, when will we ever learn? Or shall we be like the urban myth that has it that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water it will instantly leap out. … But if you put it in a pot filled with pleasantly tepid water and gradually heat it, the frog will remain in the water until it boils to death.
