"the water was so clear you could drink it," my husband remarked to me while we were traveling to bacolod last friday.

we had passed a couple of local boys who were taking a joyous dip into a river. i made a comment about the water's murkiness (it was cafe au lait in color) at which he smiled, agreeing silently. i chided him then how he used to do that and enjoy it very much as well when he was a kid.

that was when he made the defensive remark and proceeded to tell me how clean the water was in the river where he and other neighborhood boys would swim regularly, naked as the day they were born. they would catch shrimp and small fish from the river with a small net, and would have more than enough for a meal. there was a kind of shrimp that was plentiful -- a large one, as big as one's lower arm and it was so meaty the flesh almost tasted like lobster.

but that was before pesticides were used widely in rice farms in their area he said. the chemicals poured into the fields would inevitably end up in the river, killing all the creatures there, including the big shrimps they call patuyaw.

today, very few seafood can be caught from the river, or even at sea. as a result not only of widespread and indiscriminate pesticide use, but also of overfishing, and other factors such as improper waste management.

i would have loved for my son to experience swimming in a very clean river, catch fish or shrimps or even crabs for me to cook. sadly, tragically, the chances of that ever happening are very slim.