Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Mountains. For someone like me who live all her life in a city, the mountains are considered as one of those with most magnificent view ever. I never get tired to be amazed everytime I went outside the city and got the glimpse of the the mountains during a road trip.

Lately, just before the holy week, I had the most wonderful trips so far. I went to Igbaras, Iloilo twice and for the first time, in the Province of Antique. These places are mountainous. So my eyes enjoyed so much the of view that laid in front of me during those days.

But I observed one thing in all those mountains. They are all brown. Most have their bases green but all are obviously brown. Maybe we can say that it's summer, so all those greens were dried up by the mighty sun. Is that so? I hope so. I hope to see those mountains again in times that summer is no longer there. I wish that my doubts of illegal logging or "kaingin" (cutting and burning of trees for cultivation purposes in a destructive way) is not true. But in my visit in Antique, I saw a forest fire while I was riding with my father in his motorcycle. The fire came from the other side of the mountain but it tore my heart while looking on those fire emerging and fighting its way up in the mountain's peak. That very moment I realized that the mountains are not so beautiful after all to look at. And that every time I see a mountain in brown, I thought of the pain that a certain mountain had gone through with the people that lived with it and supposed to take good care of it. When those mountains with lack of support from the roots of trees that meant to grow but burnt collapse, those people living around will be the immediate victims. Landslide won't destroy just their livelihoods, it could kill them in an instant too. So I do not know what those people are thinking when they did those unlawful act in their environment. Maybe they just want to survive for today and don't ever care for tomorrow.

Ain't no mountain high enough for a respect?