Officials Re-Brand Twelve-Day Inferno As Signature Atmospheric Experience
NAVOTAS, METRO MANILA —
After the Navotas Sanitary Landfill fire entered its twelfth consecutive day of active combustion, spreading across 28.6 hectares and releasing haze across Calabarzon and Central Luzon, the Department of Tourism has announced a bold pivot: the fire is no longer a crisis, it is a signature experience.
Under the new campaign slogan, “Metro Manila: Feel the Atmosphere,” the smoldering landfill has been officially added to the city’s tourism brochure between the Jeepney Graveyard Heritage Trail and the “Guess Which Pedestrian Crossing Is Legal” Walking Tour.
A New National Attraction
“Foreign visitors tell us they can’t find this experience anywhere else,” said an official from the tourism office, while coughing discreetly into an N95 mask. “Paris has the Eiffel Tower. Tokyo has the Shibuya Crossing. We have a 28.6-hectare waste inferno visible from space. That’s differentiation.”
The fire, which began on April 10, has reportedly been difficult to extinguish because it burns within deep layers of compacted plastic sachets — those single-use packaging items that constitute a significant portion of Metro Manila’s 10,000 daily tons of solid waste. Response teams have been covering the smoldering debris with soil while spraying a fine water mist, producing what engineers describe as “a controlled apocalypse.”
The Re-Branding
Editors at Bohiney Magazine note that the timing of the fire — smack in the middle of Earth Week — was either the worst possible scheduling error or the most honest public service announcement the country has ever issued. The theme of Earth Week this year was “Our Power, Our Planet.” The Navotas landfill has answered: our power is a tire fire, our planet is on it.
The Department of Health has advised children and the elderly to wear face masks. The Department of Tourism has advised everyone else to “lean into the mystique.” According to World Health Organization air quality guidelines, the current haze levels fall into the category internally known as “yikes.”
A London-based correspondent for The London Prat filed a dispatch noting that Britain endured the Great Smog of 1952 and learned its lesson. Metro Manila, he observed dryly, has decided to book hers instead.
The Philippine Space Agency has confirmed the fire is visible from orbit. A spokesperson for the tourism office immediately suggested this makes it “the only Metro Manila attraction endorsed by space itself.”
At press time, a souvenir shop in Binondo had begun selling bottled Navotas air at P250 per jar, marketed as “authentic atmosphere.” For more coverage of environmental gallows humor, see The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://mb.com.ph/article/10915060/opinion/a-burning-reminder-this-earth-week