Hazy ASEAN leaders are just not smart enough!

Indeed the recurrent haze in this part of the world has not taught us anything. It certainly exposes our greed and desperation to livelihood.

With nature not showing any sympathy, the rain is a fleeting hope as we desperately now are advised to turn to God in prayer as millions go about their daily routines without any protection against the hazadous air pollution as if it is just another ordinary day.

The alleged big corporations that have denied affirmatively that their sprawling lands are not set on fire still does not make the annual haze go away.

The news that Indonesians may be guilty of this great injustice to so many millions of people in the vicinity and neighboring shores as there is rampant land clearing to enable farming, meanwhile, if proven true will only drive home an even more sad picture – that while the have’s are enjoying life, the have-not’s are desperately eking out a livelihood using primitive methods to secure food and income sources.

Alarming

The current haze is indeed very alarming. It certainly exposes our many ills, greed and inability to collaborate through a commitment for humanity beyond borders.

What is most obvious is, it is sending many people to clinics and hospitals; the aged and sick are certainly most punished; schools have to be shutdown while innocent children have to forego their fun times and play.

Meanwhile, office and factory workers are expected to be more immune to the dangerous air pollution. There is no company that wants to shutdown. Profits and business as usual precedes employee health and wellness.

Yet these are the same business communities that keep harping in good times that they are doing great progress and caring for and rewarding their employees through annual dinners, vacation plans and what have you.

Contradicting

So you see, we are a bin of contradiction. On the one hand we tell our children to stay indoors because the air index is escalating to very dangerous levels; and on the other hand we deny this same, safe practice for working adults.

Then you have the allegations and counter-allegations being traded across borders. Mammoth corporations deny that they are guilty of burning; the blame is being shifted to local farmers.

But we seem to be missing the point at the expense of sinning against all humanity.

If indeed poor farmers are the ones who are behind this mega-burning then we need to ask who takes responsibility over such acts. It is very convenient and easy to blame the peasants. But we need to know why are they left with only the choice of burning to survive a future?

There are two significant lessons to learn from this on-going blanketing air pollution.

First, we are greedy. Period. Our greed stemming from that philosophy of the end justifies the means, keeps us commiting all kinds of sins against humanity.

Big corporations that profess to be do-gooders with their smokescreen Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) cannot see a symbiotic link between the profits they are raking and the losses the farmers endure. When this link of interdependence is sacrificed and severely compromised, we have the haze.

When there is haze nobody benefits because humanity is at risk.

Secondly, what surfaces from this chocking haze is the sheer fact that ASEAN leaders are not up to the mark. They are indeed third-world rate. Sorry if this hurts.

Their inability to learn, act and redress from past experiences clearly affirms that we in the ASEAN belt have a long, long way to go. Mind you these forest fires are not caused by nature or the will of God if you will. It is man-made.

Man-made, yet no solution

Yet none of our leaders have decisively, affirmatively and collaboratively taken the lead to diligently prioritize gain commitment to the letter on forest clearing and open burning activities.

Even if some were to argue that the leaders have been talking about it, the fact is humanity is suffering today despite whatever talk that has been going on its rounds all these years. That in short is called failure.

Truly, this is the folly of the ASEAN leadership, the ASEAN profiteering corporate world and the weakness of the citizens in all of the countries affected by the haze.

Sure enough, we will point fingers across borders; nobody takes the punishment – there being none; soon it will be forgotten till the next haze hits us again.

But at some point all these are not going to benefit any of us as a neighborhood of solidarity; and all of these are not going to benefit any one nation at the expense of another either.

We need charismatic leadership; we need benevolent corporations; we need a reformation of civil strife to cut through all this hazy sins against humanity if we are serious about the AEAN citizens’ lives.

MAILBAG