What He Said!!!

Without really meaning to, I stumbled into the hot news item of the month only a couple of days ago.  Some US Navy ship had a crew drunk enough to run aground and damage a coral reef that is considered a National Treasure.

Now I normally gloss over what people consider news nowadays, but I found myself reading this for personal reasons.

You see, I have an emotional attachment to the issue of coral reefs being damaged. I spent childhood summers on an island with a rich coral reef: Year after year my family would go to our secret paradise on Cagbalete Island and enjoy its natural wonders.  Snorkelling in clear blue-green waters, poking strange rocks, watching shimmering colourful fish, and then having them for dinner afterwards.

As secret places go, unfortunately, the more people visited, the less secret it became.  Each year we noticed more and more settlers pouring in from other islands.  That did not seem to be a bad thing, until we watched in slow-motion horror as they systematically started to dismantle the entire reef.  Between dynamite fishing and straight-up taking a pickaxe to the corals, it did not take the settlers long to reduce the reef to a sandbar.

Someone told me it takes a few million years to grow a really good reef. I do not know if that is true, but I do know that for my own lifetime, I have seen the last of our reef on Cagbalete Island.

So, yes, I wanted to know more about how this US Navy ship “destroyed” Tubbataha reef.

I am Reef-Obliterator!  Wait, where are we?

I read on, and I figured out that “destroyed” was way too strong a word for a reef that was less than 1% damaged.  And when I say less than 1%, I mean less than 1% of 1% of 1%.

Wanna do the math?  I did.  Tubbataha reef’s size is listed at 130,000 hectares.  A hectare is 10,000 square meters.  Reports indicate that the damaged portion of the reef is about 1000 square meters.  So what happens when you divide 1000 by 1,300,000,000?  You get…

…You know what, the number is so small, not even my pocket calculator can figure it out.  But trust me, it’s not even 1% of 1% of 1%.

This doesn’t mean I don’t care.  All I am saying is that I was relieved. It’s not as bad as I thought.  We’re going to live.  We’re gonna smash up that errant ship, and get it the hell out of our reef.  Then life goes on.

Wait a second, did someone say "smash up the ship"...?  Well that seems excessive, but what do I know about Navy Ships and reef-entanglements anyway?  Let them get to it, I thought, and we can be on our way.

But wait, here comes Donald Trump Jr, sharing an opinion on Twitter – where random honest opinions are kindling for blazing hellfires of outrage.  If I may paraphrase, Trump Jr pretty much says what I was thinking, but with all the sensitivity of a leather glove:  “Hey guys, the damage isn’t that bad, so it can’t be worth the US Navy sacrificing a 277 million dollar asset just to appease the gods of the reef.”

In fact, I read elsewhere that if “official” rates were applied, a million-dollar fine should cover the damages.

But hey, somebody forgot to remind Trump Jr that nobody likes the cold inconvenient truth.  Nobody likes their foot getting stepped on and hearing “Shut up, I didn’t mean it, and it’ll be fine, here’s twenty bucks.”

Apparently, what we want is a profuse apology, a steak dinner, and make up sex.  Oh, and cut off your stupid foot.

So because Trump Jr wasn’t giving us fine mature emotionally intelligent folk what we wanted, it suddenly isn’t even about the reef anymore.  (Wait, was it ever was about the reef to begin with?)  Now, the headlines are all about some arrogant American (Really?  Another one?  How many can there be?) making light of our loss.  Of our less than 1% of 1% of 1% loss.

The Super Secret Law of Active Activist Activity: People who are always on the lookout for reasons to be indignant will spend a lifetime doing nothing but protesting against those who want to do something else.

Bring out the indignant-bandwagon, because Filipinos love to jump on it.  We have a culture of people quick to get on board issues only once it becomes popular to do so.  Include me in it, because this is a bandwagon piece and I won’t apologize for it.

Hey, anyone remember that Greenpeace ship that ran aground the same reef years ago?  They paid about US$7,000 (yes, only seven thousand) for damaging about a tenth of the area.  No one remembers?  Maybe because bitching about Greenpeace isn’t as sexy as raging against the arrogant US of A and the outspoken son of a popular figure with questionable hairstyle-choices.

I like a good picket as much as the next guy, but after a while I’d rather use the wood to build houses instead of placards and fences.  After the bonding and euphoria of mass-indignation wears off, I start to wonder if we can do something else with all this protestive energy.  After all, it’s not like Trump Jr said “Fuck it, leave the goddam ship there.”  All he is saying – if I can hear him right – is that taking the USS Guardian apart is quite possibly not the best solution from an economic standpoint – and could in fact cause more damage to the reef.

Ah, but it’s never what he said, but how he said it!

So ignore all reason and jump in the bandwagon.  The one with the sign on it that says “Hey, let’s all ignore the message and hate the messenger.  Let’s all feel insulted! Come on, it’s gonna be fun and we are gonna get a lot of attention!”

The wagon leader cries, “Death to arrogant popular scumbags who belittle our sovereign nation with their honesty!” and the others shout “Yeah!  What he said!”

Jesus Christ, that is a LOT of baggage.

The Super Secret Law of The Desperate Housewives Tale: If you want everything to be about you, you are going to take everything personally.

I remember a day in 2007 when some scriptwriter for Desperate Housewives thought it would be funny to make a reference to our fake-diploma industry.  It was a joke – a funny one – and we couldn’t take it as one.

The only way we could take it, was personally.

Sometimes I cannot roll my eyes high enough.  Are we really a people brought up to handle the weight of everybody else’s opinions?

Trump is one man – who happens to be a citizen of a democracy – who was candid enough to share his personal opinion.  I am another such man.  And in 2007, a desperate housewives scriptwriter wrote a joke.

Then, as now, I tried to put on my Filipino patriot hat.  I really did.  Just today I closed my eyes and imagined the reef I grew up with on Cagbalete Island, and how it doesn’t exist anymore.  Then I Imagined Trump Jr walking up to me and saying, “Sorry that happened, buddy, but it’s gone.  Can we move on now?  What can we do to make you feel better?  I mean, besides trashing a two hundred and seventy-seven million dollar piece of hardware.”

I opened my eyes, and I couldn’t feel bad at all.  Because if I remove my emotional investment from the issue, I have to agree with Trump Jr.

Yep, this is productive.

After damage has been done, I prefer any approach that moves things forward in a way that benefits all parties – even (gasp) the offending parties.  While I understand the sentiment that a ship that dares to damage (less than 1% of 1% of 1%) our reef deserves to be cut into a million pieces, to me it is still just a sentiment.  It does not seem like a solution in the classic win-win sense.

If the point is to control the damage, then let’s control our rage.

The Super Secret Law of Sensitive Skin Care: If it burns when I pee, it must be because my insides are much too flammable.

Trump managed to inflame us with an informed opinion.  Never mind that a guy who happens to be the Executive Vice President at The Trump Organization and an ambassador for Operation Smile might know a little bit about what he is saying.  The point is that he was speaking

his personal opinion.  One based on whatever information he has, and devoid of any of the emotions swimming about inside the hearts of “the wronged.”

I know about this emotion, so I know what it is like to hate a voice of reason heard during the heat of a wrongdoing.

Once upon a time, my neighbor drove over my dog.  Killed it dead.  I fantasized about taking a crowbar to his car – and how, after it was a total wreck, a light would shine down from the heavens onto my dog’s corpse and bring it back to life.

I did what I could to that car, I won’t lie.  But my dog stayed dead.  At the end of the day, I only added damage to the situation.  Also, I spent weeks pretending to help my neighbor find the guys who dinged up his car.

Whenever I visit my home island and see the lifeless sandbar where I used to snorkel, I feel like raining dynamite on the fishing villages just so they could know how the reef felt when they blew it up one meter at a time over a fifteen year period.  Fortunately, smarter people than me have better ideas.  As it turns out, educating errant fishermen and showing them how to serve the community was a better solution.  It did not bring my precious reef back, but at least no one had to die.

My point is that I'd rather we work on solutions that help me get over the loss of my dog and my reef. Buy me a new one? Give me two million dollars? I am pretty sure “smash that fucker into a million pieces” – while a lot of fun – does not move things forward.

Maybe the real lesson here is that we need to redefine what an eye for an eye means. It seems to suggest that if you poke me in the eye, I must gouge out yours.

Doesn’t that just create a pair of cyclopean hate-mongers?  I mean, come on, everyone loses an eye!! Is that the definition of fairness? Or is that just pointless violent vengeance?

To me, an eye for an eye means that if you cost me an eye, you have to give me an eye - yours, if you want, but not necessarily. Get me an eye from the corner store, if one is available, whatever gets me an eye back.

Instead of clamoring for them to cut up that wretched ship for running aground on our precious reef, why not – and I am just spitballing here – support them in pulling it out in one piece and have them thank us for the support by paying us a portion of the value of the ship – over and above the million dollar fine for damaging the reef.  Win-win, or something like it.

I’m just saying, we have to rethink what an eye for an eye really means.

Of course, this is all just my slightly-informed take on things.  What I say here – no matter how influential I fancy myself to be – likely has a whopping ZERO effect on how the United States and Philippine Governments choose to resolve the issue.

And Trump Jr?  Even if he is a thousand times more influential than I, a thousand times zero is still zero.  We are just a couple of guys running our mouths because we love the concept of free speech.

So here’s to hoping our governments can create a policy where we simply bill them for the damages, and collect promptly.  Stop the crying and start the healing.  I’d like to move on already so we can get back on some bandwagons that really matter.  Anyone else out there want to help free Carlos Celdran?