the fields

When I was a kid, i always looked forward to the afternoons when after school, my neighbors would play "agawan base", hide and seek, camping and all konds of games inside a vacant lot in front of our house in Quezon City.There we hid among the talahib... ran after hundreds of dragonflies, and made small huts where we lit-up bonfires and exchanged tall tales with the elders. The vacant lot was a paradise filled with Santol, guava,Avocado, star apple, Aratilis and other fruit-bearing trees. It was really fun while it lasted.We soon grew up and the other kids slowly vanished as more and more of the neighbors started moving elsewhere.That was yesterday
Today, I spent a few days in Iloilo city on a documentary assignment, I came across this kids playing near the sea. I learned that every afternoon, they would play in this patch of land by the sea, a virtual fishpond for the community,,, sadly in a few months , if conditions permit, a huge coal-fired power plant would take it's place... right beside the existing Diesel power plant in the far background. Soon after the kids happy memories of their childhood will be wiped out by dark clouds of dirty coal exhausts and toxic heavy metal by-products of the future.