A Thousand Words and the NLUA

I rummage through a lot of photographs looking for banner panoramas to put up there at the top of the page. Every once in a while a picture will cause me to sit up sharply and stare awhile, to digest what is there. 

This one is a top candidate for photo of the year. A Manila shanty-town burns.

The source is photoblog.nbc.com, and you should definitely link over for some of the other dramatic shots of this blaze. 

This action shot pulled me in. I became one of the guys on the roof, maybe the guy with the blue stripe on his shirt sleeve looking back for his last glimpse of the roaring heat before scrambling off to safety.

I'm sure he is thinking "WTF! I'm outta here!"

Can you hear the noise of the inferno, feel the heat the guys feel?

Wow.

Five guys have made the decision to go. You can feel the sense of urgency, the panic to get the hell away from hell. There is one guy on the ground already. We can see the back of his head.

Check out the older guy on the roof. He looks resigned to loss. Giving up hope. Perhaps this is his home they are standing on. Or he watched his go up in flames. The heat must be powerful on his bare back.

All the rest of the men are young, probably not older than 25. Muscular. In shape.

The guy on the far left is looking back into the buildings. Is someone in there? Is he trying to get stuff out? No one else is carrying anything.

The two guys behind the JoeAm character are also heading out, resigned to the fact that there is nothing left to do up here.

Then there is the last guy. The guy on the roof on the right.

He has a high tolerance for heat, eh?

What's he looking at? He stands almost in disbelief. Possibly watching a home explode, a neighbor's house collapse, a dog get barbecued.

He appears to be smoking a cigarette.

Now that is one cool dude.

Maybe I'll make him the JoeAm character.

Although, in truth, Joe's probably on the ground about a mile away looking for a Starbucks latte frappy or somesuch.

Postscript

On February 3, President Aquino certified as "urgent" a proposed National Land Use Act (NLUA). He evidently got frustrated by the delays caused by the Senate's personal disputes, namely Enrile and Cayetano going at it. So the President designated it urgent to break it out. The goal of the act is to preserve agricultural and watershed areas which are today being eroded by storms and urban encroachment.

This has so many positive implications. Better preservation of resources for national parks and hopefully better discipline in urban development. As this shanty-town fire illustrates, the Philippines is a dangerous place for the poor.

This is another quill in the full-feathered bonnet of the President. He has the perspective and the power to take a very important bill that has been languishing under the weight of private interests for 20 years and pry it loose. I hope implementation is also pursued with a clear sense of purpose.

Here's a recap of the NLUA as reported on philstar.com:

The NLUA was first filed in 1992 during the 9th Congress.

The proposed measure seeks to institute a national land use policy, provide implementing mechanisms, rationalize the utilization, management and development of the country’s land resources, and ensure their optimum use consistent with the principle of sustainable development.

One of the key features of HB 6545 is the creation of a land use policy council tasked to formulate the National Land Use Guidelines and Zoning Standards (NLUGZS). The NLUGZS will serve as a framework for planning and management of land resources at the national and sub-national levels.

Under the bill, land uses are grouped into four - the protection land use, production land use, settlements development, and infrastructure development.

In projecting spatial allocation for the different land uses, the bill provides that areas under protection land use and national parks and strategic agricultural and fisheries and development zones would first be set aside to ensure ecological integrity and promote food security.

The next in priority would be lands or areas for integrated watershed management, socialized housing, fisher folk settlement in coastal areas and waste disposal.