[This one is the piece I made during the 2009 university-wide Essay Writing Contest. This is a bit informal for the competition. But, I am still proud writing this]

THEME: “How the Msuan Can Demonstrate Genuine Concern for Environmental Issues”

MSUANS ON THE HORIZON: A CHANGE OF PACE

I felt relieved. Last night’s weather forecast in the television stated that Mindanao will have a sunny weather today including cold cities in the south like Marawi. When the rays of sun started radiating and permeated the window glasses of my room, I smiled at the King Sun for it’s going to be a good day. Lowering down my head, I saw two children happily voicing out as they sold vegetables considering the fact that perhaps, they will be rewarded by their mother because of the impressive sales out of their labor. Thirty minutes unconsciously passed and I didn’t even realize that I went back sleeping. I faced the window again but now, I could see no other color than unsaturated gray due to heavy rain. Green and yellow shirts hovered in the scenario. It was the two kids! Their vegetables were left on their way because they used the wide container as protection from rain. At a vista, I believe I saw them crying while their clothes were drenched with dirt and mud. I took a deep breath then told myself,

“For sure, those kids will never believe in weather forecast again.”

Here I am, striving for my dreams, at a very unique university in the southern part of the Philippines- Mindanao State University Main Campus. Why unique? It’s very peculiar for this widely- spanned university to have a community within the campus itself. Here can you find residential houses, business establishments and diverse individuals that have all linked themselves with the university on the top of a greenish mountain. But the green color at a far distance deceives the eye of what is really within MSU. At all directions your vision can attain, improperly disposed waste materials seem to dance with the wind of Unforgiven Conscience. This wind craves to blow these wastes to the faces it loves, the faces of those who ditched the garbage in an offensive manner.

As the wind rests, heavy rain immediately follows. The effect of change in the rainfall cycle is very evident in the cracked lands that produce unwanted heat from within, not counting how many other environmental constituents are destroyed by it. The wind and the rain are definitely mad so they will never stop doing their mutual task until we wake ourselves up.

Stepping with a bigger leap, our country itself is suffering with environmental challenges. We always feel intense heat due to lack of surrounding trees. This inefficiency is furthermore triggered by unscrupulously illegal logging of trees that exist. Nevertheless, the issue about illegal logging isn’t flashy nowadays anymore. There are no trees to be logged, illegal or legal, notwithstanding. That makes it worse. Filipinos always make plans for reforestation but unfortunately, the number of dying animals is pathetically far way larger than the number of concerned Filipinos.

Now as we go on to ponder on the environment’s status quo in the perspective of looking through the entire planet, it is undeniably like a flashback to the uncivilized geologic periods. What has been embossed by the civilization and human evolution on the planet gradually vanishes like falling dominoes. Animals are severely extinct. Instead of preserving, we don’t spare them; we even kill them for strikingly wicked personal purposes. Same is true with the global warming and the apparent climate change. All these things destruct the equilibrium of nature and we don’t have anything to blame other than our own actions.

As MSU reaches its 48th year of foundation, the challenge has been laid upon the students of the campus- the present MSUans. To demonstrate genuine concern, there are several ways an MSUan can do it. First is through academic excellence. By this, students will be more prolific in producing methods, ideas, and techniques to implement counter-attacks against environmental phenomena. This entails rational knowledge to be used in this battle for changes. Second medium is through direct actions. An MSUan is characterized by a courageous ego. He can plant more trees, help preserve animals and conduct activities that will eventually remind everyone in the awareness of helping shape a better future. And lastly, self-discipline is the most efficient pen we can ever write in our minds and hearts. If we persevere, we will surely find contentment we have all been dreaming all our lives. It all comes from us; we just have to unseal it. I don’t want those two kids to cry again because of the environment. I even want my future children to lie down in the green pastures of the golf course as I can still do now. Not burns. Not ruins. Not floods. Not rain.

After a long time of lying, I will now stand up and do my task. I will help shape the future. Go
MSUans! Let the battle begin.#