The issue of "Global Warming" (GW) or Climate Change is no longer a laughing matter. If scientists and world leaders such as Al Gore and Company are right, there will be major changes in the global climate any time from 2020 to 2100. Many scientists are predicting that because of GW, the sea level may go up soon by five feet. The impact, especially on island-nations or archipelagos like the Philippines will be catastrophic. A large part of Metropolitan Manila is actually below sea level. If the sea level will go up by five feet, Laguna de Bay and, yes, even the seven lakes of San Pablo City will become part of Manila Bay. And if the increase in the sea level reaches 16 feet – if just half of Antarctica will melt – perhaps two-thirds of the Philippine land area will under sea water.

In order to prepare for the coming GW-caused catastrophe, I wrote last year a nine-part series of articles for the Filipino Image Magazine of Washington, DC (www.filamimage.com). The series was about "reinventing" for the Philippines "The Manhattan Project (TMP)." To the uninitiated, the "TMP" was the top-secret national "crash program" of the United States to develop the atom bomb before Nazi Germany and Japan would have it. To read about "TMP," readers may go to http://www.atomicmuseum.com/tour/manhattanproject.cfm

The Filipino version of the "TMP" is a crash project that my friends and I are proposing to do. We must do the socioeconomic equivalent of the A-Bomb. We need to have impact projects like the "TMP" to find options to address GW in the homeland.

To date, there is really no serious effort even on the national government to address the coming catastrophe. The Filipino leaders are in virtual state of denial. Nobody talks about GW and the solutions needed to address its tragic consequences. The Filipino version of the "TMP" may literally and figuratively change the landscape and the environment of the Philippines. It may even change the moral fiber and/or the "cultural DNA" of the Filipino people.

I actually started the conceptualization of the Filipino version of the "TMP" on the Island of Manhattan, New York City. While at that time the GW topic was not yet well publicized, already some scientists were warning of the degradation of the environment. The idea of doing a "TMP" hit me while I was walking to the office of then American Express Chairman-CEO James Robinson III in the summer of 1988. I wanted to interview Mr. Robinson about his "Institute for International Debt and Development" (I2D2) idea. I will discuss in a coming article – as part this series – the I2D2. I eventually met with Mr. Robinson for four times. Our last meeting was on June 6, 1994, when I accompanied the then Philippine Senate President Edgardo J. Angara to see Mr. Robinson at his Midtown Manhattan office for a meeting about the I2D2.

Since then I corresponded occasionally with Mr. Robinson’s office about the I2D2, the NAFTA and other matters.

But then as in 1988 and even now, nobody in the Philippines gave (and is giving) serious consideration to GW. If readers will accept the need of doing a Filipino version of the "TMP," perhaps it will be easier to persuade the Filipino people and their leaders and the movers and shakers of Washington, DC, to support the cause. Washington, DC, is actually the unofficial capital of the world, where the most-powerful person on Earth holds court at the West Wing.

I will discuss in the coming days in this web site the four Ws (what, when, where, why and the H (how) components of the Filipino version of the "TMP."

Please stay tuned. And please tell your friends about this series of articles and how our collective ideas can "reinvent" the Philippines. Reinvention, as advocated in my "Reinventing the Philippines" essays that saw print in several Filipino-American publications in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago from 2003 up to the present. # # #

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