The morning that never will be

By Atty. Egay Uy

I was sitting in my mini-office at home early last Sunday morning and I could hear the songs of several birds, chirping and tweeting as they flew from tree to green lush tree in my peaceful and quiet neighborhood. There was also the usual morning aroma in the air that I breathed. Yes, it was an ideal healthy and relaxing Sunday morning.

Then I realized it will not be so for long because the early harmony of tweets and chirps will surely be disturbed by the revving and whirring of heavy equipment like backhoes, cement mixers, huge concrete pouring trucks, cargo trucks that unload steel bars, and workers who talk and play the radio as if they were one kilometer away from each other.

Yes, it will not be for long simply because a neighbor allowed a telecommunications company to erect a telecom tower in his property without regard to the disturbance that the structure could cause to the peaceful and quiet compound of those nearby who enjoy the tranquil and natural beauty of the florae all around.

It will not be for long before the finished telecom tower will stare at my home and those of others in the compound right straight in their faces as if saying: “You have no right to complain what your neighbor does to his lot. I have conquered you!”

To level off, we live in a private compound which my late wife Juliet and her siblings inherited from their late parents. We fondly and informally call this place Orevoni (Inovero read backward) Compound which has been the home of direct and second, and even third, generation descendants of Lazaro Inovero and Concepcion Roa-Inovero for years now. Yes, Lolo Zaro and Lola Conching to many.

The compound was host to many family gatherings during Christmas and New Year’s eve, and even during simple and significant milestones in the lives of many of those in the compound. We called those events “tapok-tapok” or “sugba-sugba” which however had to give way to the prohibition against mass gatherings because of the pandemic.

It is not unknown to many that the exercise of one’s right of ownership of a piece of land is limited by the rights of others to also enjoy their undisturbed possession and occupation of their property, which necessarily includes the right to enjoy the peace and quiet of their neighborhood, the right to enjoy the sight of green lush trees around accompanied by the concert of birds chirping and tweeting all over, and the right to be respected as to what should become thereafter of the erstwhile peaceful neighborhood where beautiful and considerate people have lived for most of their lives.

This will become a thing of the past because the gigantic telecommunication tower will literally lord it over in the compound and stare us all straight on our faces, to our consternation but of course to the delight of those who never thought of the adverse consequences of their decisions, decisions that did not consider even a bit how the neighbors will be deprived of the early morning concerts of birds and the aroma of fresh air, of the peace and quiet that we were used to comfortably enjoy and experience each day.

Let’s include the right to sleep tight at night assured that all the hullabaloo about radiation and all, especially if reported by some unsure government office, will truly do no harm to those in the vicinity. But that would be another story.

I will never hear, see, and feel again that kind of morning because of one’s indifference to, and disrespect of, the rights of others. Yes, I will miss that kind of morning that will never again be.