ORAS NA: A GMA News and Public Affairs Special Hosted by Richard Gutierrez

For the average human person, indeed for the average Filipino, deadlines are part and parcel of daily life. But in our quest to meet deadlines, the resources that sustain our lives and lifestyles are used, and oftentimes, abused. That is why scientists predict that within the current human lifetime, the most essential resources may be on the verge of running out. In the year 2025, experts predict that the country’s virgin forests will be wiped out. In the same year, a shortage of clean water is foreseen. By 2030, fossil fuels which power cities, homes and industries will be in decline. And by 2050, a collapse of marine resources leading to a seafood crisis is feared. It’s about time we take a serious look at these deadlines. This year, GMA News and Public Affairs embarks on its biggest environmental project. ORAS NA, hosted by Richard Gutierrez, takes us to places where there is significant visual evidence to suggest that time may indeed be running out for the resources that provide our most basic needs. Today, only 17% of the country’s original forest cover is left. At the current rate of deforestation, it is not surprising that by the year 2025, local experts say that the country’s old growth forests would be wiped out, twenty five years ahead of the worldwide deadline of 2050. In Surigao del Sur, logging continues despite a moratorium declared in February of this year. An old lauan tree, about 30 feet tall, took decades to grow. But actual footage reveals that the same tree can be cut down by a chainsaw in mere minutes. Time lapse footage also reveals how a forest area the size of four basketball courts can be cleared in a day to meet the needs of people for housing and settlement. Scientists from Canada’s Dalhousie University published a report that by the year 2048, there will be a fisheries collapse due to over harvesting and destructive fishing. Yet even today, forty years ahead of that deadline, there are places in the country that are already feeling the crunch. General Santos City, once the fourth largest tuna exporter in the world, faces a tuna crisis. Tuna plants that supply canneries were closed down due to the dwindling fish population. Many fishermen no longer catch tuna from Philippine seas but from farther boundaries such as Indonesia. Today, those in the tuna industry fear their days are numbered. Cannery officials share that their factories could close down in the next three or four years. Freshwater is another valuable yet diminishing resource. By 2025, it is feared that only a fraction of the current clean water supply will be available to each individual. And while the 2025 deadline may seem distant to some, there are communities today that already know what it is like to thirst after this precious human need. In Bohol, time lapse cameras capture a community’s hard work as they manually dig a well which will serve as their town’s reservoir. While it takes the villagers five days to break ground with water, up to 50 million liters of water are wasted every day in Metro Manila households alone. ORAS NA presents these provoking images of stark contrasts in the way people use and treat resources, and in the way people spend time. An ambitious production that took many months in the making, ORAS NA illustrates potential clues to what experts believe may be the most significant deadlines of this generation. By capturing on video the consumption and depletion of resources as they happen by the minute, by the hour, ORAS NA provides a different perspective on how each passing moment of human existence can either lead to the planet’s degradation or to its conservation. Don’t miss this important television event. Sixty minutes that will change the way you look at time. ORAS NA, hosted by Richard Gutierrez, premieres Sunday November 20, 10:30 p.m. on GMA.