Raping the environment is social injustice.
The rape is aggravated by governmental inaction, stupidity, incompetence, incoherence, and corruption, as well as by community indifference.
I was not surprised to know the distrust, skepticism, and lukewarm reaction of leading Filipino environmentalists when R.A. No. 9729, otherwise known as the Climate Change Act of 2009, was signed by Pres. Gloria Arroyo the other day. Why? In the first place, existing Philippine environmental laws, such as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Hazardous and Toxic Waste Management Act and those governing protected areas like watersheds and forests have been ignored and buried into oblivion and are not implemented with strong determination by the very people who are mandated by law to protect our ecology, all of whom to my mind do not operate and work as a team and are more concerned with protecting their own official turfs, projecting their political images in the mass media, and receiving their fat compensation and perks.
We are excellent in passing new laws (and we have thousands of them in the archives since 1900), sitting on unrepealed old and existing laws, debating on legal concepts and political dreams before the cameras, and issuing press releases with pictures of our smiling and angelic-looking faces; but we are shamefully impoverished and deficient in real and true action and implementation of our laws and in asserting the principles of transparency and accountability in governance.
Read the Inquirer items below.
Climate change law met with skepticism
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:17:00 10/25/2009
www.inquire.net.
MANILA, Philippines – A national environment protection group, Bangon Kalikasan, has welcomed with skepticism the passage of the Climate Change Act of 2009 and the subsequent creation of the Climate Change Commission on Friday.
Joey Papa, Bantay Kalikasan president, recalled that long before the signing of the law, other commissions and similar bodies such as the National Solid Waste Management Commission had been formed by the government but have been “virtually inutile for nearly 10 years now and may have ended up being used instead for the commission of acts against the environment.”
In a statement, Papa cited environmental laws such as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Hazardous and Toxic Waste Management Act and those governing protected areas like watersheds and forests.
He said that if these laws were fully implemented they would have considerably helped mitigate the effects of climate change and prevented the untold damage caused by storms “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” and other extreme weather conditions.
He said the country could not depend on a law like the Climate Change Act of 2009 “without its correct and immediate implementation” or it would just be relegated to the dustbins of libraries.
On Saturday, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo enacted Republic Act No. 9729 establishing the Climate Change Commission to draw up an action plan against global warming.
The signing came as Metro Manila and northern Luzon reeled from the destruction left by Ondoy and Pepeng that killed hundreds of people and destroyed billions of pesos worth of crops and infrastructure.
Weather officials blamed climate change for the extremely heavy rainfall dumped by the storms which inundated a vast swath of the metropolis and triggered heavy flooding and landslides in northern Luzon.
The commission is tasked to map out an action plan to mitigate the effects of climate change and to integrate climate change in the formulation of government policy.
To fully stop environmental destruction, Papa urged the President to immediately issue an executive order to all government agencies and local government units concerned to put an end to all the destructive practices against the environment.
He also asked the Ombudsman and the courts to immediately act on pending complaints against violators of the law and environmental criminals. Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon.
Theres The Rub
Climate change
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:38:00 10/26/2009
As I write this, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (remember her?) has just signed into law the Philippine Climate Change Act of 2009. Republic Act 9729 makes climate change part of government policy, the better to deal with its effects. It will create the Climate Change Commission which in turn will create the National Framework Strategy and Program on Climate Change.
For all the big words, all that this reminds me of is the story, doubtless apocryphal, told about Ramon Magsaysay. An aide came to him, saying, “Sir, rice prices are going up.” He replied, “Then stop them from going up.” The aide said, “We can’t, sir, it’s the law of supply and demand.” Magsaysay replied, “Then I’ll repeal that law.”
That’s true at least of this government, its capacity to deal with climate change being of the order of bidding the waves hold still. Climate change of course is real. Global warming is an imminent and present danger, as seen from the disastrous effects of “Ondoy” and “Pepeng.” Truly we ought to prepare for it. We should have done so much earlier, the writing on the wall being already visible some years back, but better late than never.
Preparing for it though is not just a question of formulating “framework strategies and programs.” Drowing lang ’yan, as we like to say. It’s just a hollow façade. Preparing for climate change isn’t just fortifying dams or distributing relief goods. Preparing for climate change is preventing it from ravaging us to begin with.
For that to happen, we have to make several climate changes. You heard that right.
First, we have to change our political climate. Or more to the point, we have to change our government.
This government is not the cure, it is the disease. This government is not the shelter, it is the storm. It can create as many commissions and frameworks as it likes, but we will be no nearer to being prepared to deal with disaster than Arroyo will be prepared to deal with life without power.
I’ve said it repeatedly, the one leader we need in times of war, whether the war is against want or another country, whether the war is against Nature or ourselves, is the one we can trust. In times of war, you need a leader whose word you can latch on to. You need a leader you know has your interests at heart. You need a leader who can rally you behind him or her, who can inspire you to make sacrifices, who can make you glimpse victory or plain survival. Such a leader was Franklin Roosevelt. Such a leader was Winston Churchill.
Such a leader is not Arroyo.
Second, we have to change our social/economic climate. Or more to the point, we have to redistribute wealth.
A few families controlling everything and the rest wallowing in hunger and ignorance is not just a recipe for a smoldering social volcano, it is a recipe for a smoldering natural one. Or it is not just courting disaster of the social kind, it is courting disaster of the natural kind. We can talk ourselves silly about disaster preparedness, but so long as the divide between rich and poor in this ravaged land remains spectacular, so long will we continue to have multitudes nestling beside creeks, legions huddling at the foot of volcanoes, hordes refusing to abandon the path of flood and lahar. What else is there?
That is not to speak of the unspeakable greed of those who steal calamity funds.
Third, we have to change our cultural climate. Or more to the point, we need to educate the populace.
Without education, religion is just superstition. Without education, people will not believe that God helps only those who help themselves. Without education, people will believe only that an unseen hand can be directed by supplication to redirect the path of the rampaging waters elsewhere. Or failing to do that, direct one’s soul straight to heaven.
Without education, population will always be overpopulation. It’s not just that people who cannot make it in this world will just make babies for this world as they have nothing better to do. It’s also that it’s the only insurance the poor will have of being taken care of in old age—better than Philam Life, better than Ayala Insurance. In the cruel calculus of poverty, you lose half a dozen kids to war, flood and hunger, you’ve still got six.
Without education, you’ll always just have the mentality of a gambler. Maybe the howling winds will decapitate your hut, maybe they won’t. Maybe Pagasa is right about the impending fury, maybe it’s not. (Best not to comment on the odds there.) But you’ve lived your life betting the cops won’t catch you as you ply your trade as a thief, you’ve lived your life betting you won’t get a drunken customer who’ll beat you black and blue as you walk the streets at night, why would you do otherwise in the face of fretful nature?
Without education, you will always be the victim of disaster. Hell, without education, you will always be a disaster.
Fourth, we have to change our psychological climate. Or more to the point, it’s time we stopped being tired and defeated.
It’s not in our stars, dear Pablo, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. It’s not the natural plight of Juan to be abject, subject and reject. It’s not the natural lot of Maria to go around, like the victims of lahar, begging bowl in hand—which is now the lot of the nation, knocking on the doors of the world for alms. It is not the natural end of a people who made the jeepney from scraps of metal, who made the Barong Tagalog from the ragged clothing they were made to wear by the invaders, who turned the massing of ragtag groups into People Power, to die forlorn and forgotten.
Noypi ako. I will rise from the ashes, and soar.
See:
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20091026-232243/Climate-change
