Basura Blues and Buzzwords

Basura Blues and Buzzwords

Why can't we be like the Japanese when it comes to cleanliness and order? I have always wondered about this with a mix of frustration and envy.

I don't know about you, but from what I have seen for years, being makalat (cluttered, disorderly) and dugyot (messy, unsanitary, and strewn with trash) seems to be a major Filipino trait. It is, of course, unfortunate, sad and embarrassing, and personally it has become one of my pet peeves because I can't think straight and write well if my surrounding is makalat and dugyot.

So waste management issue is a very personal issue to me, as I am deeply affected. Seeing all sorts of kalat and basura, whether at home or along the roads I traverse everyday and in other public spaces, is such a huge issue for me, because it means a lot of things on so many levels, namely:

1. What sort of people would treat their own home as trash bin?

2. I wonder what they think about their sitio, barangay, town, country, or being a Filipino citizen?

3. How were they raised at home as kids? What sort of teaching did our people learn in church? in school?

4. Or is it a matter of PERSONAL CHARACTER?

5. Why, oh, why does it have to be the local government that has to do the actual picking up of residents' trash?

6. Don't we love our own place? Aren't we proud of who are? If not, then why treat it like a piece of shit? How come we hate ourselves so much? Are you dreaming of somehow someday getting the hell out of here? What if our life here is the only life we have? What if "THIS IS IT!" for us? So what is stopping us from living here right now in the fullest way possible? Why can't we take care of our own without government telling us to?

Whew, I can't help it, but these are the thoughts whirling in my head AT THE SAME TIME whenever I see a piece of trash that was not disposed of properly, especially when the trash bin is just a few inches away. You could say the OC in me is triggered.

Aside from what I have enumerated above, I am guessing that another factor is at play apart from the seemingly utter lack of self-respect and lack of civic pride: There is, I think, a well-entrenched culture of masyadong maasa (mailalo in Pangasinan). In Tagalog, masyado tayong umaasa that someone else will clean up after our own mess, no matter where we drop our trash. It is as though an invisible trash-eating robot is always available behind our back, with an unspoken command to detect messiness and automatically clean it up for us. Yes, just like in our fastfood restaurants, for example (though in this case, the food servers are expected to do the cleaning up).

The result? Drainage doubling as dumpsite, causing massive flood. And general ugliness all around. Etc.

Presently, our LGU is relaunching, yet again, a campaign to dissuade our own people (i.e., that's basically ourselves, though not everyone is guilty) from treating our own very surroundings as a garbage bag, landfill, and a compost pit of non-biodegradables.

In a bid to come up with new taglines that would hopefully help bring about change in the mindset and later on hopefully in the actual behavior as well, I was tasked to come up with ideas but my mind was a blank at the moment, so I decided to do a quick survey of coworkers to solicit new ideas. Now this was a fun part, and I made it even more exciting by promising to treat the writer of the winning tagline to a milk tea, coffee, or something. The only other instructions are that the new taglines should be a bit threatening to bring some fear in the hearts of the would-be indiscriminate trash-throwing culprit, and that the taglines would be pasted as portable signs on newly purchased garbage carts to be pushed around by our basura patrollers in search of unseemly trash around town.

I am delighted at how creative our people can be with their words. Here, look at the unedited attempts. A number of entries are pure kalokohan, though admittedly hilarious. (Diyan tayong mga Pinoy magaling eh, no?) And a number are too good to be considered pangmasa. And some may have been Googled or AI-assisted, and that's okay. (The only problem would be originality.) Disclaimer: For good measure, I ended up throwing around my own entries into the fray anyway after I reminded myself that I am allergic as hell to slobs.

- Basura o Kulong?

- Basura o Bigwas?

- Basura o Himas Rehas?

- Basurang pinoproblema, itapon mo na

- Basura mo! Hiwalay mo!

- Basura mo! Ayusin mo!

- Basura mo! Recyle mo!

- Basura mo! Ibulsa mo!

- Basura mo! Babalik sa 'yo!

- Basura mo! Tinapon mo! Babalik sa yo!

- Basura mo ibulsa mo, kalikasan natin ay pangalagaan mo.

- Isipin mo muna bago ka magtapon ng basura.

- Basura? O katok?

- Samahan mo ako, tara na! Puksain ang basura

- On the waste of love

- Love moves in mysterious waste

- Basura mo ibulsa mo, kalikasan ay protektahan mo.

- Say no to litter, say yes to a brighter future.

- Trash reminds us of our waste, think before you trash.

- Basura mo mukha mo!

- Cart on the way/To take your waste away

- Add to cart mo na basura mo.

- Check out, Segregate, and Add to cart your waste

- Pagtapon ng walang pakundangan / Repleksyon ng iyong katauhan

- Bawal ang Dugyot Dito

- Kapaligiran 'wag Dungisan nang hindi Pagparisan.

- Basta Bayambangueno Disiplinado

- Never refuse to reuse.

- Slam dunk the junk.

- Mom says recycle.

- Save the Waste

- Your plastic contribution / is causing pollution

- Litter for everyone

- Less trash, more life

- Lend a hand, save the land.

- Be green, be seen, be clean.

- Garbage is not glamorous, but recycling is fabulous.

- Be an earth hero, recycle to zero.

- Less waste, a cleaner space.

- Be part of the solution, not the pollution... Recycle!

- Bayambang: Where Every Waste Finds Its Right Place!

- Keeping our town clean, one bin at a time!

- Sige, itapon mo! Makikita mo!

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Guess which two taglines were chosen and approved in the end? What would be your own suggestions, if given the chance?