Various sectors in Angeles City join the Sapang Balen clean-up drive on Saturday. Photo by Bong Lacson
Mayor Pamintuan leads the Sapang Balen clean-up drive. Photo by Bong Lacson
ANGELES CITY – “A dream come true.”
Thus hailed the Most Rev. Pablo Virgilio S. David, auxiliary bishop of San Fernando, of Lingap ku king balen.
Malinis a Sapang Balen, the program to clean the city’s principal waterway as well as other creeks and rivers here.
Initiated by Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, the clean-up drive started last Saturday with scores of students, city employees, civic groups and individual volunteers clearing with their bare hands, rakes, shovels and other implements the Sapang Balen and Abacan creeks of wastes.
It will be undertaken every first Saturday of the month “until the waterways are restored to their pristine nature.”
“When we started cleaning Sapang Balen some years back, we were told by the city government (under then-Mayor Francis Nepomuceno) that they would support us. No, we told them, we are the one’s supporting you,” David recalled in his inspirational message to the group. “Now that has come to pass, the city government of Mayor Pamintuan leading, all of us supporting (the clean-up drive).”
The prelate likewise reminded the people along the riverbanks of the curse he placed on those who would continue to pollute the Sapang Balen creek.
“The river is a creation of God, and like all his creations is good and beautiful. To pollute it is a desecration of God’s work,” David said. “Misumpa la ding magdinat king Sapang Balen (Cursed shall be those who shall dump wastes on the creek).”
The clean-up campaign, David continued, finds greater relevance amid the slew of calamities besieging the country.
“The destructive flooding we are now experiencing is caused, to a great part, by the wastes we throw in rivers, making them constricted,” the bishop said, at the same time warning that there shall come a time when “we cannot anymore dig wells for our water and will have to drink from the rivers, hence the need to clean them.”
The environmental advocacy of David extends to the campaign against polluting piggery and poultry farms in Barangays Sta. Cruz and Manibaug in Porac town and in Barangay Cutcut here.
Last year, David joined a massive march-rally initiated by the Pinoy Gumsiing Ka Movement against the hog farms before the Porac town hall and lashed at the local government unit for reneging on their mandate to serve the well-being of their constituents with the continued operations of the polluting farms.
BISHOP’S CURSE
In May 2009, David served as convenor to the organization of the parish-based Sagip Sapang Balen Movement intended “to revive the dying river which used to be a haven for aquatic creatures and a beautiful sight to behold for many Angeles folk of old.”
Sometime in July that year, the bishop was reported as having walked along the banks of the creek, intoning through a portable sound system: “Magmula sa araw na ito, binibigyan ko ng sumpa ang Sapang Balen.
Sinuman ang lalapastangan nito ay magiging malas sa buhay (From this day on, I am putting a curse on Sapang Balen. Whoever dares to show disrespect to it will be unlucky in life).”
The blogsite hrp-sac.blogspot.com. of the Holy Rosary Parish of which David serves as parish priest said the bishop’s curse was meant to warn the people “to stop killing the helpless river lest they want to be unlucky for the rest of their lives.”
It quoted David as saying: “The river has life and anyone who dumps garbage without compunction is killing it slowly. Laws and ordinances do not seem to work at all; people just ignore these. Let us se how they will react to a curse from a bishop.”
Later identified as polluters of the Sapang Balen creek, aside from the residents along its banks, were two meat-processing plants and the city slaughterhouse.
BELIEVER
“I believe in the efficacy of curses on evil-doers especially those who despoil the environment,” Pamintuan said.
“Taking care of God’s creations, of Mother Earth herself, for the next generation is also paramount in my hierarchy of values.”
Pamintuan said “nature is now exacting its toll for all the abuses man committed against her.”
“The worst flood that ever occurred in Bulacan and Pampanga is happening right now. The whole Candaba Swamp and beyond, from the vantage point of the NLEx viaduct, is one whole vast ocean…
Only rooftops are visible where communities lie,” he said. “It is well past time to pay our dues by cleaning up our mess.”
Aside from the river clean-up, Pamintuan has also initiated the planting of one million trees in the city within his first term in office.
