As someone who grew up in a house just a stone’s throw away from a creek, a creek that normally would get flooded during the rainy season, I had more than just a passing acquaintance with water hyacinths. They would blanket the inundated rice paddies and root themselves there for several weeks, making themselves such a nuisance when rice planting season came. We had to hack through them with spade, shovel, and bolo so they could be hauled away from the rice paddies, left to dry under the sun, then burned for good. Every year, the backbreaking effort to get rid of water hyacinths from our rice paddies made them familiar to me to the point of contempt—a contempt that I didn’t have in the same measure for water lilies. This other, more attractive water-borne plant was a much less inconvenient nuisance, for it rarely ventured out of the river about two kilometers away to join the destructive water hyacinths in our creek. At any rate, it’s still very clear in my mind that water hyacinths are water hyacinths and there’s no way I would confuse them with water lilies, which is an altogether different plant, as the following pictures I have put together for this essay will show:
Water Hyacinth
Water LilyImagine my surprise, then, when I came across the recent Malacañang photo release below, published in the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, whose caption referred to “water hyacinths” interchangeably as “water lilies”:
THE GRAND GREEN RIVER. President Aquino standing on the Delta Bridge points to a section of the Rio Grande de Mindanao river carpeted with water hyacinths during his inspection of the flooded areas in Maguindanao on Wednesday. About 20 hectares clogged by water lilies had to be cleared often by hand. Two and a half hectares remain to be cleared. Trailing the President is the Presidential Security Group commander, Col. Ramon Chito Mateo Dizon.
(In the main news story,
“Aquino leads ‘war vs water hyacinths’,” “the water hyacinth problem” is repeatedly referred to as “the water lily problem.”)
It looks like Malacañang is hardly alone in thinking that the term “water hyacinths” is synonymous with or the same as “water lilies.” Agribusinessweek.com, in a news report entitled
“Handicrafts Out Of Water Hyacinth,” reports that water hyacinth is “more popularly called water lily.” The Department of Science Technology itself has acknowledged that the water hyacinth plant is “often mistakenly called ‘water lily’” (
“FPRDI helps water hyacinth industry”). I gathered from Google that several other news reports during the past three years or so have erroneously referred to water hyacinths as water lilies.
I am therefore stating for the record here that it’s inaccurate to interchangeably refer to “water hyacinths” as “water lilies.” These two are different and look different, and biologically, they belong to different plant families.
The water hyacinth, whose seven species comprise the genus
Eichhornia, is a free-floating perennial aquatic plant native with broad, thick, glossy, ovate leaves. This plant may rise as much as 1 meter high above the water surface. Its erect stalk supports a single spike of 8-15 conspicuously attractive flowers, mostly lavender to pink in color with six petals. The common water hyacinth,
Eichhornia crassipes, grows very vigorously and is known to double its population in two weeks, thus its strong potential to block waterways and cause flooding. It’s a very aggressive invader that forms thick mats that can cover the entire surface of a river or pond, causing oxygen depletions and fish kills. (Source:
Water hyacinths)
In contrast, water lilies, whose estimated 70 species comprise the genus
Nymphae, are rooted in soil in bodies of water, with flat, almost circular or oval leaves that either float on the surface of the water or are held above the water. The flowers are borne singly on the stems and have numerous petals that all look alike. The beauty of many water lily varieties has led to their widespread use as ornamental plants. They also serve as valuable natural oxygenator for ponds, allowing fish to breathe and beneficial bacteria to thrive. (Source:
Water lilies)
For this reason, I think that if we must wage war against water hyacinths for flood control purposes, it must be made clear to the public—perhaps the Department of Science and Technology should make the official clarification—that the war has to be waged against water hyacinths alone. It should by no means be waged against water lilies in general—a war that might turn ecologically disastrous for us.
VERY INTERESTING RELATED READING:“A Home Before the End of the World”SHORT TAKES IN MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH:(1) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Misplaced modifying phraseOver 25,000 Marikina folk pack 15 evacuation centers
Fearing a repeat of the disaster wrought by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” in 2009, Mayor Del de Guzman said many residents from throughout the city continued to stream inside the 15 designated evacuation centers even though their areas had not been badly hit by heavy flooding.
He said that as of Saturday morning, only some 10 percent of the entire city was submerged in floods.
“But the people left (their houses) even though it wasn’t flooded yet in their areas. That’s why the number of evacuees has increased,” De Guzman earlier said in a radio interview.
The lead sentence above is an unwitting victim of this misplaced modifying phrase, “fearing a repeat of the disaster wrought by Tropical Storm ‘Ondoy’ in 2009.” As a result, the fear is wrongly attributed to the subject “Mayor Del de Guzman,” when it should contextually and logically be attributed instead to the Marikina folk who had packed the town’s evacuation centers.
The following reconstruction puts that footloose modifying phrase in its proper place so it can do a proper modifying job:
“Mayor Del de Guzman said that many residents from throughout the city,
fearing a repeat of the disaster wrought by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” in 2009, continued to stream into the 15 designated evacuation centers even though their areas had not been badly hit by heavy flooding.”
(2) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Highly problematic modifying phraseTen outstanding Manilans feted in 440th Araw ng Maynila rites
Ten personalities, including the first woman associate justice of the Supreme Court to administer President Aquino’s oath of office, were bestowed on Friday medallions of honor for being adjudged outstanding Manilans for the 440th Araw ng Maynila.
The annual search aims at recognizing men and women who have contributed immensely to the benefit and development of Manila and its residents and whose achievements in their respective fields have given prestige to the country’s capital.
Anyone who reads that lead sentence above is bound to ask: How many woman associate justices of the Supreme Court were needed to administer the oath of office to Philippine President Aquino? Wasn’t just one woman associate justice enough and that, in fact, only one actually did?
These questions are sure to arise because of the grammatically and semantically flawed construction of the modifying phrase “including the first woman associate justice of the Supreme Court to administer President Aquino’s oath of office.” And from the looks of it, that very serious flaw is such a tough nut to crack from a grammar standpoint!
Let me try anyway by jettisoning most of the premodifying and postmodifying elements of that highly overloaded phrase, which at its core is none other than the proper noun “Supreme Court Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales”:
“Ten personalities,
including former Supreme Court Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, were bestowed on Friday medallions of honor for being adjudged outstanding Manilans for the 440th Araw ng Maynila.”
As for the other encomiums for the distinguished honoree, I think it would best serve the interest of clarity to just list them down later in the story.
(3) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Misuse of the present perfect; misuse of preposition; wordinessGovernor arrested over mining graft case
BUTUAN CITY—The governor of Agusan del Norte has been arrested for a graft case at the Sandiganbayan yesterday but wasn’t likely to spend time in jail after posting bail immediately after his arrest was made.
An antimining group in the province, who sued Gov. Erlpe John Amante for alleged irregularities in issuing permits to transport nickel ore out of Agusan del Norte, hailed the arrest, calling it a triumph for the environment.
The lead sentence above misuses the present perfect tense “has been arrested.” The simple present tense “was arrested” should have been used instead because the time of occurrence of the arrest is specified—“yesterday.” The present perfect would be called for in such sentences only if a recent time of occurrence isn’t given.
In the same sentence, the prepositional phrase “after posting bail immediately after his arrest was made” is grammatically incorrect because it misuses the preposition “after” in introducing the reason for the unlikelihood of the governor having to spend time in jail. For that phrase to function correctly and logically as a reason, it has to be introduced by the conjunction “because” instead and reworded accordingly. Also, the prepositional phrase “after his arrest was made” is redundant; the sentence could very well stand without it.
Here then is that problematic sentence as corrected:
“The governor of Agusan del Norte
was arrested for a graft case at the Sandiganbayan yesterday but wasn’t likely to spend time in jail because he
posted bail immediately.”
(4) Philippine Daily Inquirer: Misplaced modifying phrase; wrong verb tenseCommuters’ umbrellas, raincoats not enough for ‘Falcon’ rains
MANILA, Philippines—Makati city commuters seemed prepared for Tropical Storm “Falcon,” armed with umbrellas, rain coats, and even flip-flops for the flood. But they seemed to be caught off-guard by the storm’s strength.
Commuters were left stranded and soaked at the MRT Magallanes station on Thursday evening as PRC-bound jeepneys usually plying Chino Roces Avenue were scarce when rain, wind and floods brought by tropical storm “Falcon” became worse.
Because of a misplaced modifying phrase, the lead sentence above conveys the absurd sense that it was Tropical Storm “Falcon” that was “armed with umbrellas, rain coats, and even flip-flops for the flood.” The correct subject of that modifying phrase is, of course, the “Makati city commuters,” and the sentence would have yielded the correct sense if the modifying phrase was positioned up front of the sentence, putting it closer to this subject.
The use of the verb phrase “seemed to be caught” second sentence of that lead paragraph is also grammatically wrong; since the action is in the past, that phrase should have been rendered in the passive form “seemed to have been caught” instead.
Here’s that lead paragraph with all its grammatical bugs corrected:
“
Armed with umbrellas, rain coats, and even flip-flops for the flood, Makati city commuters seemed prepared for Tropical Storm “Falcon.” But
they seemed to have been caught off-guard by the storm’s strength.”
(Continued on next panel)
