A True Progress is Balancing with Nature

By: Pablito Espanola

Transformation. World-class improvement. On-trend. And other words synonymous with

globalization. These are the main goal of every country. To become globally competitive among
the rest.
According to some economics books, globalization is the term used to define and elaborate
the constant growing interdependence of the world's economies, populations, cultures, and
brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, flows of investment, technology,
information, and people.
In this time, we dwell in the twenty- first century — also known as the ‘technological era’. An
era where we can not deny the fact that man has even captured space, that there is a discovery
that happens every day, where man has made his life easy living with his new branded gadgets,
but there is a question that always persists, what are we losing because of our goal or is there
something to be seriously worried about because of our goal? Well, the answers for these
question lies from where we lived on, and that is our environment, which is the one who suffers
terribly because of being ‘brutally murdered’.
Nobody can deny the fact that globalization is useful to humanity. It opens a wide floor for
every country to explore especially the Philippines. To mention some: globalization improve the
quality of education through the imposition of K-12 curriculum, it increased the flow of capital that
help to grow and foster the Philippine economy, produced better products at lower prices,
enables collaboration and sharing of resources with other countries, spread cross-cultural
exchange and also spread knowledge, experience, and technology.
But anything in excess is worst as they say. Too much attention to positive outcomes covers
the negative ones. Politicians, businessmen and businesswomen, and government leaders did
not look at the disadvantaged view of globalization. They somehow act like blind-ones and heard
nothing that globalization causes job displacement and kills the job of some Filipinos thru utilizing
technology instead of manual labor. Globalization contributes to the increased number of
Filipinos suffer terribly from hunger especially those who belong to the lower class. Globalization
could result in unequal economic growth among provinces and cities. And might not be the last
but globalization is also one factor in having a greater risk of diseases to spread which is being
transported unintentionally from other nations just like of COVID-19.
The government focused on building and creating bigger industries that could help in
growing countries economy despite the fact that it causes damages in environment and keeps
polluting our air, water, and land masses that affects to the creatures lived on it. From these
industries, harmful and hazardous substances in the air are contributed. Hundreds of chemical
substances have been identified by scientist that pollute the air. These are the carbon monoxide,
carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur trioxides, organic
compounds, fluorine compounds, radioactive compounds, metallic contaminants,
photochemical oxidants such as ozone, and so on. These factors are multiplied by the cutting
down of trees, which in turn leads to less purification of the atmosphere. All these lead to
respiratory problems.

Our survival has always wholly depended on the natural resources of the Earth. The natural
resources are the blessing of Mother Nature that has provided us with abundant elements to make
our life comfortable and prosperous. It is unimaginable for human to live without natural resources. So,
we should become a responsible earthlings of our Mother Nature.

With these, it is an essential to say that the real problem of the twenty-first century is the lack
of knowledge and understanding in dealing globalization. Globalization is just a tool. It is up to us
if how are we going to blend on. To be a responsible leader then is to put paramount the balance
of pros and cons of globalization, for like a lighthouse, it would strengthen our sail and bring us
and our country to the right path. Globalization depends on us. Currently our environment is so
contaminated that urgent measures have to be taken.

‘Together we can attain true progress if we balance and protect the nature, the people and
its environment.’