I received a text message from a good friend last night. It simply announced his new job and his new post in Bohol where he is observing effects on marine mammals from the seismic survey done in line with the oil exploration in Tanon Strait. Further on, he stated how he was able to see a pack of dolphins, close to five hundred, traversing through the sea.
And the chain of messages made me realize two things which could be summed up in the title above: caged in!
Yes, we are caged in. I’ve read about the oil exploration plan of the government last summer but I never thought it could happen as soon as today. I could even remember how my sister and I had a great laugh at the picture of some sort of an oil tanker considered to be the best and the most modern in the country, when, to our very own untrained eyes, it certainly looked a hundred years old. The truth of the matter is, our government is simply jumping on something they (those we call honorables wearing their respective barongs and doing nothing) think would alleviate our economic situation, without even considering its environmental effects. Again, they presume and assume a lot of things, without even taking preliminary considerations, so to speak. They proceed to the seismic survey without assessing its possible after-effects to anything and everything. They are easily blinded by the promise of money without even taking proper planning first. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
And then, who gets to enjoy the oil riches in the country should the oil exploration be successful? The glaring answer would be those multinational companies and a few of those barong-wearing officials who seem to be doing nothing but keeping their mighty seats shiny with their big, fat, corrupt asses. And then, our dear old country would be left destroyed and dilapidated, its natural resources abused. The poor Juan will become poorer and he will realize that the promise of multimillion investments was nothing than seeing big boats and tankers traversing the very seas where he fishes and witnessing the corals and marine creatures rapidly disappearing. Yes, he might have a few months of eating the more expensive canned goods and buying his kids some brand-new clothes in a cheap bargain store, provided the oil company would hire him as lowly help, but for the rest of his life, he will be haunted by the horrible sight of the environment around him– barren, overused, empty, non-existent.
The second thing would be a little bit far-fetched but still connected. When my friend texted about the five hundred dolphins, my first reaction was that, "Hey, I am from Bohol but I haven’t seen any dolphin in my province." In fact, the first and only time I ‘ve seen dolphins and other marine creatures for that matter was during my visit to the ever-revered Yokohama Sea Paradise. It was comparable to Sea World in HK though I haven’t been in the latter. There I was, standing in awe and amusement, face to face with a bottle-nosed dolphin and an enormous whale shark, with only a thick sheet of glass as my protection. Later on, I saw several kinds of sharks, a sea turtle, a manta ray, sea cow, and later, on the third floor, some seals and some penguins. Now that I think about that 12-hour encounter with the sea, I could not help but feel depressed. How ironic it was to have all those creatures caged in when only a few kilometers away lies the Yokohama Bay?
And it makes me shake my head in amusement at how we, human beings, try to preserve those sea wonders in our own designed giant aquariums and water parks, and then destroy their natural habitat? Do we really have to cage in some animals for the future generation to see while we roam freely and spread our destructive powers over the forests and the seas?
These are questions worth pondering about. And I tell you, this is best analyzed by our government officials if they were only caged in. 
