‘Kamayan’ Forum Marks A Dozen Years

One of things we believe we did right was to take a proactive stance on certain issues when the opportunities to do so presented themselves. One such case was the river pollution issue raised by fisherfolk in the Lian and Nasugbu, Batangas, against alcohol distilleries operating along the Palico River.

At CLEAR’s initiative, the contending parties were brought together in one of our sessions, with the DENR secretary in attendance. In response to a challenge of the government to find a win-win solution, the distilleries, with the guidance of BIOTECH-UPLB, launched a program to test the efficiency of distillery wastes (slop) as an organic fertilizer for sugarcane and other crops.

The liquid fertilizer program weas so successful that today the river pollution problem no longer exists; the farmers are saving the money they used to spend on chemical fertilizers; they are getting their organic fertilizers for free; and field documentation shows increases in their yield, ranging from 30 to 60 percent.

There are other stories to tell. But even if this were our only tangible achievement, we would be justified in claiming that we have made a difference. We hope to continue trying to make a difference for the environment. And we thank everyone who shares with us this hope, with their memberships, with their presence at our sessions, with their commitment to environmental protection and sustainable development.
We would not be here without the continued support of the Triple-V Group. Maraming salamat, Ginoong Vic-Vic Villavicencio.

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  Welcome the Cooperatives, All Players!

WE ARE overjoyed to acknowledge the headway gradually being made by efforts to invigorate the country’s thousands of cooperatives, mainly by imbuing them with the spirit of synergism which is the very soul of cooperativism and by drawing them into mainstream of self-reliant and sustainable development processes. Cooperatives have started planting their flag in evironmentalism. The forthcoming Sixth National Cooperative Summit, and all preparatory activities leading to it will give one and all an unmistakable and indelible proof for this, part of that “glimmer of hope.”

We are also overjoyed to hear a leader from the Filipino business sector articulating a clear view about the sector’s concern in the current destructive overexploitation of our natural resources at a time we are yet unable to optimize their use for our own national industrialization. We had earlier thought all the rhetorics for globalized greed have rendered them resigned to the role of junior agents of giant “global” (read: foreign) enterprises that have been for decades bleeding our country of human and natural resources. These Filipino entrepreneurs, too, are welcome reinforcements to our ranks of green advocates.

Together with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, the academicians, health workers, community leaders, everybody, and of course with all the environment-focused organizations, we all comprise the formidable sleeping giant that can finally move to put an end to environmental destruction. Yes, we do make up a giant. But the giant in our potent power together can only be awakened and unleashed if we can all work closely together in a national synergy for environment and sustainable development. We can all do it the real cooperative way—with bayanihan synergy and self-reliance. And, really, we’ve started!

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  Citizen Groups’ Worries Over WSSD

WORRYING is not our favorite pastime, but by the way things have been going with the various conferences held in various parts of the world, leading up to this September’s World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, governments are taking it all in stride, as if admittedly just going through the motions of preparing to go through the motions of talking during the WSSD.

The Philippine government’s preparation has left so much to be desired. It was reported to be “utterly unprepared” for the Phnom Penh talks. It was said to be efficient only in keeping the “civil society” voice away from the microphones. And the official Philippine position to be presented is yet to be finalized, now that the negotiation talks are over.

Two emerging concerns were foreseen in the draft position paper from a project, called “Danish Support for Increased Participation of Southern NGOs in the Rio+10 Earth Summit”:

One, over-emphasis on the environment aspect of sustainable development issues. While the existing national paper as well as the sub regional paper substantially discussed cross-cutting issues including poverty, trade, governance and others, there was not enough discussion on specific on specific action plans to address the said cross-cutting issues. Environment and trade has to be balanced. Yet, there have been moves seeking to pendulum-swing this to overemphasis on trade.

And, two, lack of representation of the more Marginalized Basic Sectors. Another limitation is the lack of representation of the marginalized basic sectors in the process of the consultation. While there were a few farmers, fisher folks, urban poor, women and youth who participated in the process, much improvement can be done to involved more of these groups including Indigenous Peoples who were not represented at all. This is an imperative to organize further processes to refine the civil society position papers for the WSSD.

Aside from these, since the UNCED Summit a decade ago, the forces of “globalized greed” have become stronger. The birth of the WTO creates a strong voice for liberalized trade, and the entire swing to “free enterprise” can push governments to abdicate on their duties and accountabilities to the peoples of the world, placing the latter’s environmental fate in the hands of those who know only the language of profits.

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  Support the ‘Ugnayan’ and  act local  together!

Think global, act local! is a good 1990s call for remembering and pondering today. Think and talk global is what the heads of state will surely do a lot of during the summit. They have many questions to address: what has been accomplished in the full decade after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, also known as “Rio Summit”)? After the UNCED hammered out Agenda 21, has this been translated into country-specific programs and policies? What has been the impact of this on the environment, if any?

In our case, a joint government-NGO council immediately came out with Philippine Agenda 21, had this blessed with the power of policy from the national government, and was made to undergo a process of particularization in the regional and provincial contexts, before it apparently lost whatever momentum it had at the start. What about impact on the environment here? Did it have any?

Of course, it must have had some impact. But as we would always like to remind reporters on the “environment beat,” the Philippine environment is not in the office of the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources or in any building of his entire department, and neither is it in the national and regional offices of all environmentalist non-government organizations (NGOs) combined. Much less is it in filing cabinets where copies of PA21 and minutes of discussion meetings on it are being kept. The environment is in the very lives of the people in neighborhoods and villages and in clusters of these. Apparently, all talk of PA21 stopped short of reaching these “low” levels of living reality.

Still, there was concrete action in the communities where the local people themselves decided to protect their lives against environmentally-destructive “development” projects, and then managed to draw in support from city-based advocacy groups.

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  Let us “Re-invent The Force”: Our Bayanihan Spirit

THE INVENTION that we urgently need as Filipinos would be more appropriately called a re-invention, because this was an assumed part of the way of life of our ancestors.

Yes, “The Force” was always with them. This was the strong centripetal force, a strongly-unifying force which we may now refer to as the bayanihan spirit, our sense of community, our sense of collectivity of weal and woe. Much like our ancestors who were riding those giant bancas called barangay, we could move forward and survive only by working together, affirming and helping one another.

Long ago, community members would gather, after hearing the tambuli, to meet a common danger. They would work closely together to overcome the challenge. They wouldn’t dream of saviors from the outside; neither would they depend on their leaders and be ever-ready to applaud them. Instead, they would have an “all hands on deck” situation.

The continued acceleration in the rate of environmental destruction should be enough to jolt all of us from passivity and indifference, to make us offer whatever each one of us could offer in solving this collective problem: our common home is crumbling, decaying. We can criticize fake leaders who are even worsening these problems, but we cannot afford to be paralyzed into inaction by their bad example. All who have already come to their senses have to start working, and working together!

We have all the ingenuity. Unfortunately, we have been using this genius more in activities that benefit only our narrow group, family or individual interests. How often do we use our abilidad, our well-known capacities for ingenious diskarte for the sake of the common good, for our collective survival? Not often enough, we have to admit. Let us rediscover and relive bayanihan. Let The Force be with us, with or without any laser swords.

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  The ‘super-bayani’ against the great floods

COME hell or high water, the super-resilient Filipino survives and thrives. About hell, well, there is the ironic fulfillment of the pronouncement from Philippine Commonwealth President Manuel Luis Quezon preferring to have a government “run like hell by Filipinos than one run like heaven by the Americans.” Apparently, Quezon could not have imagined suffering hell from both the Filipino politicians and from foreign overlords running our affairs and miring most of us in worsening poverty.

About high water, well, hanggang dibdib high floodwaters, even lampas-tao in some areas, have become an annual occurrence with the annual certainty of the rainy season, in what was referred to before as “Manila and Suburbs” (later dubbed as “Greater Manila”). The super-resilient Filipinos have kept on wading, swimming, riding bancas, wearing kapote, shorts and slippers to work, cursing the floods and the traffic jams that these cause, and coping in sufferance. What else could we do? Good question! We can actually try to solve this problem.

The rains are indeed given by Mother Nature, but much of the was designed to be absorbed by the roots of all those trees She had also given us, especially in all those mountains. Where did all the trees go? Where have we allowed them to go? The rains used to come in generally moderate amounts, spread the whole year with a much shorter summers; but destructive “development” has disrupted Nature’s ways, causing long hot summers to be followed by “seas of water” falling from the skies.

The sea level is reportedly rising by a few centimeters every year and would increasingly flood the world’s coastal cities; the melting of the ice caps have something to do with that. And the continued refusal of the United States to sign the Kyoto Agreement will spell a continued worsening. Blame Mother Nature for the floods? No way!

Weren’t moviegoers made to pay the “flood tax” with every ticket? Where has all the money gone? Surely it has not been going into effective flood control. And solid waste management has to come into the picture. With the abominable practice of maintaining dumpsites and landfills finally discredited and made illegal, basura collection in the metropolis is impaired, abetting the practice of throwing garbage in our esteros, our draining system. This has been causing floods and other problems.

We all can be the “super-bayani” solving this problem, by actively moving together to reduce, recycle and reuse our solid waste, starting right at home, whatever government does, or does not do.

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  Government's Lack of Credibility Affects the People's Peace of Mind

We are not against technological advance and we have in fact enjoyed the conveniences brought in by new technologies. But there is little to go by in seeking credible assurances on the safety of modern technological advances that have brought not only much convenience to people but much more in terms of profits to firms who control these technologies. Money. can. influence policy decisions.

Take the case, for example, of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) found in a lot of foodstuffs being consumed by Filipinos everyday. The government’s attitude seems to be “ignorance is bliss –what we do not know can’t hurt us.” Or something like, “when in doubt, do! say it’s all right!"Baka naman walang hazardous element diyan! Baka naman di hazardous! This does not elicit confidence.

We are not saying that all, or even most, of the government’s instrumentalities are prone to tell half-truths, and hand-wash, on issues crucial to the people's welfare, let alone safety. What we are saying is that government does not seem concerned about our peace of mind. Probably because it has lost the people’s confidence, or it has other masters.

There have been many cases when government apologists for so-called “development” projects had officially issued assurances that later turned out to be speculative, to put it kindly. It is the government’s duty to protect the people, before protecting anybody else’s business concerns. Touché?

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  Our own bodies are all ‘Walking Synergies’ of Life!

THIS editorial begins with a surprise quiz on Biology. After all, serious environmental conservation advocates are expected to know their Biology so we can know the natural environment, the better to try and conserve it. Okay? Here we go… (1) True or false: we breathe so that our lungs could live. (2) True or false: we eat and drink so that our stomachs could live. (3) True or false: organisms are simply cells clustered together. (4) True or false: we ought to save the environment mainly because if we don’t we can’t have life-support systems to survive on. Ready? Call a friend? Sure na ba kayo?

It’s all false. We don't need to have blood flowing in our bodies if (1) and (2) were true. We breathe and eat and drink so that all our cells can breathe and eat and drink. Yes, they all do that every moment, and the blood delivers supplies up to the most far-flung living cells of your cute little toe, and collects all the “garbage,” too!

Organisms, including us, are not simple clusters of living cells like cell colonies are, but harmonious mega-team-ups of diverse types of cells, all formed into teams of tissues, organs and systems. And these systems make up a harmonious symphony of interdependent vibrancy more amazing than all the Swiss watches and microprocessor-chip computer boards combined. And these gadgets don’t grow like organisms do. Left alone, our bodies can even heal themselves of wounds and all sorts of forms of dis-ease. This applies to humans and all other organisms on this living planet. Marvelous, shouldn’t we think so? How come we almost never say so? How come we behave like we really don’t think so?

Our bodies are all “walking synergies” forming part of a much bigger harmonious team-up, the great symphony we call “Nature,” where no plant or animal exists just to be another organism’s supper or plaything. Nature does not exist just so humans could eat, drink and be merry

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  Gradual Shifts in Environmental Strategy

PARADIGM SHIFTS have become the order of the day in the way we think and the way we do things. If these shifts had come much earlier we wouldn’t be facing the global environmental crisis that we have now, much less face the prospect of passing on to the next generations a planet in even worse shape than it is in at present.

But at least, paradigm shifts are occurring even if very gradually in the way we are trying to solve the crisis, repair the damage and start afresh. Consider these developments:

There is now a growing consciousness in a fast- increasing number of people that while sustainable development is the basic minimum in the prudent handling of handling of economic development, this is not sufficient for human interaction with nature, which should go beyond possession and utilization. Deep Ecology harmony with nature imbues everyone with deep love for the Life Force in all living beings, resulting in genuine respect and concern for of them, and avoiding irresponsible acts.

There is now a very gradual but quite discernible shift in the center of gravity of environment- mentalist will and action, from the increasingly detached conference rooms of intergovernmental negotiations and top-level executive offices of government to municipal halls, barangay councils, civic clubs and neighborhood associations. People now Act Local, based on local wisdom and will!

From the narrowness of range of agencies, organizations actively involved in mainstream environmental efforts, we witness now the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the cooperatives, and the Academe marching in with their flags to join the green ranks with their own work. All hands on deck!

People’s groups coordinate but no longer wait for government or some other “national entity“ to clarify policies. Partnerships and networks for sharing information, ideas and other resources have started to replace highly centralized mechanisms for planning and action. Side by side with the word “national” the word “nationwide” grows in meaning. No hierarchies, just coordination facilitators. No bureaucracies or ranks, we all work.

This is the paradigm of synergy for the environment. We can’t solve problems with the same paradigms that created them the first place, can we? Let’s welcome and validate the new paradigms!

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  Environment Department a ‘Hardship Post’

SECRETARIES of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources have come and gone, but still the overall performance of DENR at any given time has depended more on the political will of their respective presidential bosses for environmental conservation.

And because such political will has not been known to exist, the powerless secretaries had to suffer blackeyes from the viewpoint of a citizenry indignant over the department’s dismal record.

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  Christmas with our Inner and Outer Environment

THERE IS a very big difference between wishing one another a Merry Christmas and wishing one and all a Happy one. The first brings to mind lots of food, gifts under the tree, singing and laughing, lots of, well, merriment! It pertains to a festive mood—festive, no less, but no more than a mere mood brought on by the mandate of the calendar.

Happiness would be much deeper, pertaining to a more profound and more lasting feeling of joy, of gladness, that resonates with the original tydings of the angels who roused up those sleepy shepherds in Bethlehem. A joy that is rooted in the all-permeating and unconditional love that burst forth from a lowly stable one cold night in that small town two thousand years ago.

The love synergy that has been shared since then by all people whose hearts, minds and very lives were touched by that Baby in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger, has been more than enough to put a deep smile of goodwill and affection on their lips, smiles that are really hugs of love, whether or not there is enough food on the table for all.

Unless we are celebrating Christmas because culture dictates a once-a-year merriment, or unless we are pushing everyone else to celebrate because we expect to get a windfall of profits from this season’s spendings, we do have reason to ask ourselves whether or not we still resonate, if ever we did, with the spirit of Christmas that the Christ breathed out in Bethlehem and lived all His earthly life. Then, we can ask whether all the smiles of fun and merriment are reflecting inner, therefore real, smiles, and whether the gifts are real gifts of love.

Holiday pollution comes not only during expensive and noisy New Year frenzy clearly dictated also by culture. It comes up much earlier. The same parents who mouth “Peace on Earth” give toy guns to their little boys. And give to the little girls only toys that would make them either vain or baby-bound or stove-bound, and exclusively so.

Commercial materialism is promoted rather very strongly during this season, equating love to buying expensive gifts and going to restaurants. Gross indifference to environmental effects (of the gift wrappers and the firecrackers, for instance) are flagrantly exhibited.
This destroys our inner and outer environment, something the Birthday Celebrant would not like to be done in His name or that of Santa Claus. Di ba? A Loving, Peaceful, Happy Christmas to all!

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  We know what we have to do and how; so, let’s do it!

UNLESS consistent, sustainable, high impact solutions are set in place nationwide, our forests and watersheds-- barely 5% of what they were a century ago--will disappear. No forests? No water. No water? No rice. No crops? No development. The water wars plaguing Africa may find their way here. Air quality will continue to deteriorate, leading to sudden increases in disease, physical and cognitive dysfunction, as well as a new assortment of endocrine system disorders that result in an inability to thrive.

Tragically, children will be hit first. Our remaining coral reefs, mangrove forests and seagrass beds will suffocate from siltation, toxics and the effects of climate change. Unabated sedimentation could aggravate sea level rise, leading to saltwater intrusion in rivers, estuaries as well as coastal towns and agricultural areas. Primary predator populations will have been reduced to levels so low that they can no longer effectively influence the health of our marine and forest ecosystems. Forest biodiversity, and therefore viability, will tip past recoverable levels. The remnants of our oceanic food chain will crash. Our population will break 100 Million.

The spiral will be swift and vicious. All this will happen as a result of misplaced priorities and poorly-managed human activity.

I am not asking you to believe me. I am asking if, for your children's sake, you would rather be safe, or sorry The solutions exist. We have most of the policy and legal framework in place. They must be implemented and allowed to work, through local initiatives, authentic multi-sectoral partnerships and community-based efforts - without disruption from the annoying intramurals of the political elite. It is that simple.

We know how to restore forests and watersheds. We know how to rehabilitate reefs and rebuild fish stocks. We know that both power plant and vehicular emissions must be rigidly regulated; and that further investments in nuclear, coal and fossil fuel plants must never again be allowed. We know that we must stop poisoning our soils, water and air with non-biodegradable insecticides, pesticides and industrial effluents. We know that all protected areas are critical for the sustenance of human life, as we know it, and that all illegal activity in these vital conservation sites is tantamount to sabotage against the future of our own children. All we have to do is to uniformly uphold the law. It is that simple.

Let's do something about it.

Let us build a national consensus on the environment that will give birth to and fuel the political will to uphold the rule of law and the will of the People. Let us assemble a national database, available to all, describing sustainable solutions that have been tried and tested. All sectors must put their money down and get involved. All initiatives must be managed professionally, focusing on hard results rather than mere activity. Let us put aside turf battles. Let us teach each other. Let us learn from each other. And for once, let us agree on something fundamental that will profoundly affect all of us.

It may require major changes in mindset and in the way we live our lives. However, it is good economics. It is also good politics. It is for the good of all Filipinos, today and tomorrow. It is that simple.

We started it. We can stop it. We must.

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  Political Wisdom, Political Will, and Political Work

THE word “politics” has long acquired a negative meaning in this country and in many other so-called “democrtatic” countries, where professional politicians, many of whom are charlatans and opportunists are the ones who run governments instead of statesmen. However, before we completely shun politics altogether, let’s review some basics:

Governance is the management of community needs and resources in all areas of social concern, and it covers ensuring the assertion and protection of the constituents’ individual and collective rights (economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and in the international covenants flowing from it).

Politics pertains to all acts to determine or at least influence how to prioritize all the needs, how to sustainably utilize the resources for benefit of all the constituents, how the synergies are to be played out, if at all, and who among the people are to be mandated to perform the role of orchestrating and who among the people are to be mandated to perform what other roles in the orchestration. The role of orchestrating is played through a machinery for governance (called government).

The word politics does not have to be as dirty as most people have come to know it; after all, we are all engaged in politics whenever we assert the citizens’ right to influence government policies and performance. The question of who acquires, and who retains decisively influential positions in machinery called government, the question of winning electoral mandates and useful appointments are important in politics. But influencing the substantial and executory shape of formalized social policy (called laws and ordinances) and influencing the quality and degree of implementation by all quarters of all these laws and ordinances, are also very important parts of politics.

We would even say that the latter two are the more important components, and that winning the hearts and minds of large sections of the sovereign body politic is therefore the best approach in the pursuit of any widely-consequential political agenda. Wholesome politics, including the principled way of participating in elections, may be pursued by people-based movements with publicly-projected personalities that are statesmen (statespersons?) and not “traditional politicians.” Beyond whom to field, and the question of forming an electoral machinery like a political party, the challenge is to muster as strong a pro-environment political will among as many Filipinos as possible, so this whole political force may perform with flying colors through the entire gamut of interrelated tasks for pursuing the environment agenda through politics.

We need to be all unified in political wisdom (daring but prudent, visionary but realistic), political will (which should reflect even in the way we all consistently behave as persons in our own homes and communities and in the choice of what issues we are ready to bring to EDSA, with or without military support).

And political work—from effective collation and dissemination of ground-level researches, effective education of entire populations in communities, to the working out and coordination of nationwide orchestrations and local actions, through campaigns on hot issues and annual commemorative festivals, to people-directed mobilizations, with or without government support.

Politics is addition, it has always been said. Our political work should result in getting the really big numbers to the side of environmental cause.

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  Environmental Protection Thru Sustainable Agriculture

MORE than half our population lives in rural areas, where agriculture is the main activity. More than 11 of our 30 mil-lion hectares of land area are agricultural lands; much of our nearly 16 million hectares officially classified as forest lands are already being used for agriculture too, except for a few million remaining hectares of actual forests. Thus agricultural activities are bound to exert a major influence in the quality of our environment.

The dominant thinking in Philippine agriculture today is based on mechanization, specialization through monocropping, and the use of inorganic fertilizers for nutrient management and chemical poisons for pest control. As a system, this may be called “industrial agriculture”, because it uses industrial methods to increase agricultural production.

These industrial methods are a bane to our environment.
Chemical use contaminates our foods, our homes, our workplaces and the environment with toxic and other hazardous chemicals, some of which may persist for decades or bio-accumulate in animals and our bodies. They cause poisoning, cancers, developmental disorders, genetic defects and other problems.

Monocropping erodes the great biodiversity in varieties and species that have supported us for thousands of years and our fellow animals for millions of years. Single crops can support only those species which can feed on them, leaving the rest perpetually short on food and threateningbthem with extinction. Monocropping also sets the ground for mechanization.

We are not against mechanization per se. But today’s mechanization relies on a non-renewable resource for fuel, whose extraction itself is a cause of major environmental damage. It also encourages further monocropping, in a mutually reinforcing interaction that leads to ecological wastelands. The use of mechanized power to convert habitats and ecosystems into farms is creating the greatest tragedy of this epoch, a wave of species extinctions whose scale of destruction equals one which occurred 65 million years ago.

Clearly, to protect our environment and ourselves, industrial agriculture must be replaced with a more ecologcally benign approach.

Such an alternative exists. It is called sustainable agriculture. It is the framework that guides the work of an increasing number of farmers.

It nourishes crops through compost and healthy soil organisms rather than inorganic fertilizers. It recognizes the role of “pests” in the overall ecology of the farm, and relies on a variety of biological, ecological and cultural methods to balance the population of crops, friendly insects and pests in stead of eliminating the latter. It pushes for diversification, to make the farm much more resilient, ecologically and economically too. It reduces hard labor in the farm not through fossil fuel-based mechanization but through an ecological integration which treats the entire farm as an organic whole.

If we want a healthy environment, we should go for sustainable agriculture.

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  Synergize the Local Environment Movements!

“Think Global, Act Local!” This was a widely-welcome slogan when it gained currency among environmental movements in various countries in the last two decades. But the “think global” part can stand clarification. The “thinking global” must be done by local communities and by synergies of local communities.

If nation-states and inter-governmental mechanisms genuinely represent the views and policy positions of such synergies of communities, then national-level policies and programs, and the resolutions of inter-governmental mechanisms such as world summits can legitimately answer for the “think global” part. The problem is that they rarely ever do.
Even non-government organizations usually seek to get their act together on the “national” level, with all their feet firmly planted on the clouds, and send out or, worse, “send down” their analyses, resolutions, guidelines and directives for the local communities to comment on, validate, and obey.

Especially those NGOs that design their prioritizations and programs according to the likelihood of getting funds from international and national funding entities, and implement approved programs according to the timetables set by such funders, the local communities are rarely taken into full account, if at all, as the ultimate source of mandates and originators of initiatives that the national government and the “national-level” clusters of NGOs should heed and act upon.

The top-down approach to environmental advocacy and activism runs parallel to the top-down approach of Globalized Greed being rammed through by international business elite circles that acknowledge accountability only to their stockholders and ignore or even crush whatever accountability nation-state governments acknowledge having to their respective citizenries.
These two top-down approaches were horribly demonstrated in the World Trade Organization’s obviously-strong suasion over the proceedings of the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development, which, by and large, backtracked on the pro-environmentalist resolutions of the Rio Summit a whole decade before.

What can happen now is that both the government and the non-government entities in the various countries would be pressured to take their respective signals from the same WSSD documents, with the governments tending to invoke these in washing their hands over continuing destruction, and the non-government entities would seek to maximize on whatever victories were gained.

Directives from the two sets of entities would soon be expected to rain on the heads of the same set of local communities and the latter will be placed in a reactive position and be flooded with an avalanche of guidelines and educational materials “from above.”
The communities, therefore, should acquire the full capability for proactive thinking and acting local and synergizing with all other communities to globalize both the thinking and the acting.

National-level NGOs and clusters of these would do well to facilitate this synergy in information-sharing, resources-sharing, capability-building in decision-making, and other forms of support for the community-based movements.

There are actually organic environmentalists in the communities, and many of them can be interlinked in coordinative bodies that they can fully claim to be their own.”

There are, indeed, many organic environmentalists, organic leaders, organic intellectuals in the local communities, and these are much closer to the natural environment than desk-bound city-based government and non-government functionaries can ever hope or pretend to be.

These people, being “organic,” are in the best position to take direct lessons and inspiration from living ecosystems all around them, the synergy of symbiosis, where the trees have the broad point of view while their roots are deeply and firmly planted on the ground, and no one has to take the word of the pigeons, hawks or vultures as the complete Gospel truth on anything.

The challenge to all environmental advocates and activists is to break free from the human-needs-centered utilitarian sustainable development paradigm for environmentalism and the politics-based hierarchies or funds-driven programs in thinking and acting. Instead, adopt and live from day to day the supreme love for, and the faithful emulation of, the magical dynamics of Life itself. We cannot serve fully and well the natural environment, the great Nature Holon that humans belong to, while ignoring the full glory of its Innate Wisdom

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  Secretary Lorenzo, BT Cor n, and the Fishers

THE CHALLENGE to produce a million jobs yearly was a lot easier to handle, in terms of public image. Who could be against jobs-creation unless it became very obvious that our human resources are really being sold as slaves and prostitutes abroad. And former jobs-creation czar-now-turned-Agriculture Secretary Luisito Lorenzo is finding out that the Aggie post is not necessarily cozy with the larger sections of the population. This is not to mean that he cared, one way or the other.

Lorenzo’s handling of the bt corn issue and of the protest hunger strike against its commercialization has been less than creditable. An agriculture secretary is supposed to take good care of the country’s agriculture and taking good care of anything requires foresight. The GMO has not been proven safe for human consumption, and its commercialization can contaminate our available varieties of that secondary staple.

The principle of precaution prudently puts the burden of proof on the shoulders of those who claim their business enterprise to be safe, not on those of the side that cannot be so easily assured. Is this the good secretary’s way of handling the food security of a “nation of gamblers”? To feed them with experimental food which might prove to be safe after all? What if he loses the bet? Don’t we all, along with the future generations, stand to lose? Comparing that risk to food security to Lorenzo’s “worst fears” of being sued by Monsanto, is it not the prudent choice for the agriculture department to risk that lawsuit instead?

Don’t we have bright lawyers under government payroll (read: paid by the people’s tax money)?

In the meantime, we have come out openly on the side of the fisherfolks in lamenting the revocation of the administrative order of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reserving the area less than 15 kilometers offshore as fishing grounds for our small municipal fisherfolks. DENR said it was informed that Lorenzo’s department was the one in charge of that. Secretary Gozun told us that before revoking DAO 79, Lorenzo had promised to issue the same under his “more appropriate” department. Was the legal opinion merely clarifying which one between the DA and the DENR had the prerogative to issue and implement such an order? Was it only clarifying the locus of authority and not the locus of responsibility?

Responsibility! Yes, government responsibility. That is in our Constitution. And the Charter places government accountability squarely on the sovereign body politic, namely, the broad citizenry. The government is accountable to the people and is duty-bound to serve the citizenry fully.

Giving promises and then excuses is not serving the citizenry fully. Whatever the excuses, not performing one’s responsibility fully is irresponsibility.

We are aware that Cabinet officials have to toe the line set by the President, who, in turn, opts to toe the line set by her real advisers. But that is no excuse.

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Government on GMOs: When in Doubt, Do???

WHY don’t we want GMOs in our food? Various views can be heard from an ordinary citizen… a parent… a consumer.

Why not, when many experts claim GMOs to be “safe and effective”? They even say that a GMO like Bt Corn is just like other varieties of corn.
But there are many other experts who say otherwise. They say GMOs are dangerous. They say present human knowledge is not enough to determine the full effects of such tampering with forms of life..

Why not? Firms that have been pushing GMOs say that this reduces our expenses on pesticides and consequently GMOs are environment-friendly. Don’t we have to repeatedly wash the fruits and veggies we buy in the market, trying to remove chemical pesticide residues in them? Proponents say that with GMOs, you’re in good hands!

But isn’t Bt Corn pesticides-free because the corn itself – the whole plant – has been developed as one big pesticide? After its seed is planted, it grows into a living pesticide. Wow! We save on effort to wash away pesticide residues and eat the corn which is itself a big pesticide. What interesting logic!!! No wonder, Bt Corn is registered with the US Environmental Agency (EPA) not as corn but as pesticide!
You want your kids to eat pesticide? Give them Bt Corn!

Why not? If GMOs really harm our health, why have GMO products persisted in the market and a myriad junk food items devoured with gusto by our children contain GMOs. Is it because these items contain GMOs very secretively? We have been eating unlabeled GMO products for years! You want details on this? Ask Greenpeace.

Why, have there been studies indicating that if you engorge yourself with tons of GMOs on a regular basis, you would get sick? If there are such studies, would they be well-propagated? If there are no such studies, does this mean these GMOs are safe?

If Bt Corn carries poison, or rather, is a poison, what happens now? Well, its pushers will just have to continue selling its seeds secretly, selling its unlabeled seeds to unsuspecting farmers in various parts of the country, with a government smiling blissfully, looking the other way, washing its hands, waiting for piles of proof of its dangerous effects… while dreaming more and more revenue dollars from the pushers of such biotechnological “development.”

In the meantime, Bt Corn’s living pesticide is spreading its horrible self to contaminate other corn varieties, and other species in the Philippine ecosystem. The attitude apparently adopted by governments that are staunch allies of the US and the latter’s firms and industries is “when in doubt, do!” How come the Philippine government, supposed to be accountable to its citizenry and the latter’s posterity, would adopt such a stance? Three phrases are flashing in our minds as we write this editorial: criminal ineptitude, criminal irresponsibility, and criminal greed.

We challenge decision-makers in this government (glamorized pawns are disqualified) to prove us wrong. No, your excuses are not acceptable as proof!

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Environmentalism: The Wiser Way to Do Business

PURSUIT of profit and environmental conservation have been viewed to be at cross-purposes. And for good reason. Environmental destruction over the decades has been analyzed to be a direct consequence of industries and industry-supportive projects that also ignored or suppressed all protests. Government policy-makers have had their sights consistently focused on foreign investment inflows, increased taxation and increased opportunities for graft

The World Trade Organization, a grouping of “economies” accountable not to any popular constituency but only to stockholders of corporations, will meet in Cancun, Mexico this September, and there are felt anxieties that this super-strong organization will again wield the logic of “free trade” to tighten its stranglehold on the world’s diverse national and local cultures, economies and natural resources.

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  Coming Up at Cancun: A New Round of Beatings

PROTESTERS successfully disrupted the WTO Ministerial meeting in Seattle some years ago. The subsequent meeting was held in Doha, where plans for another round of negotiations were discussed with other things. The earlier round of negotiations in Uruguay, covering the agreement on agriculture, resulted in the devastation of the Philippine agriculture, particularly of the rice sector. Other agreements that have crippled Philippine economy are the General Agreement on Services and the one on Industrial Tariffs.

In all the talks leading to these the Philippine government was unable to protect the national interest. Apparently, it doesn’t even know where the national interest lies in any of these talks. The country badly needs a multi-pronged but cohesive strategy for the ongoing negotiations in agriculture, services ad industrial tariffs, and to meet the threat of a new round of liberalization moves that the trading powers threaten to launch during the Fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico this coming September. The new round of negotiations will cover four “new issues’: the “trade-related areas” of investment, competition policy, government procurement, and trade facilitation. Such negotiations would result in a vast expansion of WTO powers into non-trade areas.

Joseph Purugganan, campaign coordinator of the Stop the New Round! Coalition—Philippines, had much reason to sound the alarums at last month’s session of the Kamayan para sa Kalikasan monthly forum, which discussed the relationship of good business practices and environmental conservation. He said: “Kung sa unang round of negotiations pa lang, bugbog ang Philippine economy, ano pa kaya ang sasapitin nito pag nangyari ang pangalawang round?” (If in just the first round of negotiations the Philippines took quite a beating, what more with the second round?)

The capacity of the Philippine government to negotiate for the national interest has been almost nil. Past negotiations showed that it has no clear formulation of national interest. Negotiators have always been unprepared to defend us or are in fact selling us out, instead of protecting, the national interest. Of course our negotiating panel is also greatly outnumbered and outsmarted by those from the powerful countries who have control over the decision process at the WTO.

But we would still feel at least a little better if it convincingly behaved like it really is our own team. In the light of such handicap and in the absence of government leadership, 39 civil society groups have taken it upon themselves to formulate a strategy and advance a Philippine agenda. The agenda zeroes in on three key points: (a) opposition to a new round of WTO trade negotiations; (b) opposition to further WTO trade and trade-related liberalization; and (c) opposition to the incorporation of the “new issues” of investment, competition policy, government procurement, and trade facilitation into the WTO agenda.

The Stop The New Round! Coalition has called upon the people to support its campaign in three simple ways: (1) endorse the statement which the Coalition has circulated; (2) hold small group discussions among your own group; and (3) participate in direct action initiated by the Coalition. Environmentalists have much reason to identify with these calls and heed them. When our agriculture and our economy are on the line, the environment stands to take a worse beating. Again. Considering how the WTO is giving itself an ever-stretching latitude of concerns to control, we can do no less.

The Filipino people cannot just remain seated on the bleachers and watch “our team” point-shaving and fumbling all over the hardcourt. It’s time to disown it.

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  Why Fool the ‘Innocents’?

IT HAS BEEN enjoyed as the Filipino version of April Fool’s Day, probably as a result of the Spanish word “Inocentes” in the day’s name which the ignorant among us easily equate to “Ignorantes.”

But really the way many people still go along with the traditional trick-playing mood of Niños Inocentes marked on December 28th every year is a mindless affront to the memory of innocent victims of King Herod’s child-killing frenzy after he had heard of the Baby Messiah being born just days earlier.

Babies being killed mercilessly in such scale of numbers as we are told by the Good Book is no laughing matter at all. And definitely not an occasion for us to try to fool the innocents in our midst.

Actually the very children we love, the holy innocents of today, are also victims of fooling. Parents and elder siblings are almost always confident that they’d get away with telling tall tales to the kids, giving them soon-to-be-forgotten promises just to pacify them, or using ghost stories or even xenophobia to scare them into obedience.

“Never mind whatever sticks in the minds of these kids, it’s often very much more convenient to tell lies to them, for they are just children anyway,” a parent would easily justify to self and to others. “They would forget about it all shortly,”
But the children remember well, and as a result they grow up without giving much thought about receiving lies and telling lies, themselves.

If their parents and elder siblings appear not perturbed enough about the continuing destruction of the environment, the children are not expected to see the reality that their own future lives will be affected very much and even decisively by their own future environment, the same dying ecosystems of today that would be in much worse shape when we turn it over to the next generation, to their generation.

These children would believe us when we tell them that we really love them so, because of the colorful foil-wrapped gifts we buy for them on Christmas Day, during their birthdays. Some parents go through the motions of being involved somehow in one environmental campaign or other.

And on that basis, they impress upon the children that they are really active in these campaigns and determined to succeed. Other parents don’t even bother to put on such appearances and in effect teach their offspring that environmental concerns are not really as important as political actions, like ousting presidents. And they tell us that they really love their kids!

Maybe they do, and sincerely too. Then it may have been, all along, a case of widespread ignorance about crucial ties between these innocents and the ecosystems they would be living in. What we don’t know will hurt them!

Imagine a child whose innocent eyes seem to be talking silently to our hearts, asking, “Are you doing enough so we will not be always ill and die young because of environment destruction, Papa, Mama?” What would you say? What would you promise in earnest to do in earnest? How can we get used to the needed degree of earnestness in this kind of silent dialogue?

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