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January 21, 2011

Mosquito Season, The Third Philippines Season?

I can't help myself laughing every time I see the commercial of a fabric conditioner. The commercial model/actress claimed that it is mosquito season again. I find it crazy because why they are adding season to our climate just to promote their product. Philippines have only two seasons, the dry and wet season. No wonder the product they are promoting is a fabric conditioner which they claimed effective in warding off mosquitoes. And they are still airing the commercial now even it is no longer rainy season which is the only season when we have a lot of dengue cases and when there are a lot of mosquitoes.

But when I learned that the son of my neighbor got dengue, it looks like they make sense after all. Dengue is most common during rainy season and it is quite surprising that this kid still got dengue when it is already dry season. And what more surprising is our barrio has just been fumigated by barrio officials. It is alarming to know that we now have an all season dengue carrying mosquitoes and the use of chemical is not quite effective in eradicating this kind of mosquitoes. This is only show that we cannot resolve the dengue problem by using insecticide alone, we still need the natural way of limiting the population of mosquitoes. We still need the help of animals that prey on mosquitoes. We cannot discount the fact that during the old days the big population of this mosquito predators save us from mosquito related diseases. Sad thing is their population is now very small. The most common mosquito predators here in the Philippines that I know are frogs and lizards. I can rarely see frogs now a day even during rainy season and the last time I saw is a victim of a road kill. The on going land development is the main reason why their population decreased. Farm land which is their habitat is now being converted to residential and commercial area. It is sad that we have maintained our old belief but not the ecological balance. Up to now many still afraid of Palakang Araneta or bullfrog in English, because they believe that they will be poison by it, so every time they see this kind of frog they will kill it, but so far no known incident wherein a person has died because they were poison by this frog. While the Palakang Bukid or mountain frog has remained as one of Filipino staple food, which is why they are always being hunt. While the Palakang Dikit or banana frog is being believe to be the cause of kulogo or warts once you have contact with their urine. Although lizard can still be seen, there is still a possibility that their population will decreased because there still some Filipino that still believed that eating a lizard will cure their asthma.

If we will continue to have this beliefs and we will believe with the word of the commercial model of the fabric conditioner commercial that they will be able to solve the problem of disease cause by mosquito then we will continue to be reluctant in keeping the ecological balance which is very important in keeping the harmonious coexistence of , organisms and their environment.

1 comment:

Leah NiƱa Elsie Vega said...

It's a nice gesture for your to post a blog like this. The readers will be more open-minded with this kind of stuff. Our team is also helping the community at www.greatmoms.net by having a solution to prevent Dengue.