It started out as a simple photo shoot for a documentary on reef trash. The place was a coastal village ironically named Barangay Anak Dagat(Child of the Sea) in Lemery, Batangas. The situation that met us provided me with an inspiration to conduct several trips afterwards, to educate participants on the concept of Environmental Investigation. The coastal area of Lemery is littered with all sorts of trash that the residents claim mostly come from other areas. They are brought in by the wind and the waves, specially during the southeast monsoon or habagat. What fascinated me was the fact that the people living in this place seem to have adapted to the condition. They have accepted the fact that the beach will always be littered with trash and that no matter how much they clean, new waves of garbage will end up on their shores. Some have already given up cleaning since they have no place to put them anyway. There are no collection system and no waste management is being implemented. Life goes on such that everybody goes through their routine everyday, unmindful of the dirty environment.
Children play among the garbage, fisherfolks haul in fish from the numerous fishing boats parked along the shore, men and women continue to pound these fish and make them into "bagoong", men repairing nets on the beach among a pile of plastic bags. Its no longer shocking to them to see their neighbors approach the water with a drum of trash and dump every piece in the sea, this while children swim and frolic. The sea to these people is their fishing ground, their source of food and livelihood, their sink, their toilet, swimming pool and playground for their children. I am sure that such sad condition is not isolated to this place. It is a common occurence in many places in the country and the rest of the world.
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