People’s Environmental Demands for the new Aquino Administration

The Philippine environment has long suffered from astate of chronic crisis. The ailments afflicting our diverse and richecosystems are a reflection of the deeper social and economic inequalities thatplague our society and are intimately intertwined with the problems of chronicpoverty, hunger, unemployment and landlessness among the people.

For the past nine years, the administration ofPresident Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has denied the people’s demands to protectand rehabilitate our environment. It has even allowed the circumvention of theConstitution by selling our national patrimony to big, private and foreigncompanies. As a result, the people have remained deprived of access and controlover our country's national wealth and instead are left to fend for themselvesamidst an even more devastated and polluted environment and worsening poverty.

It is imperative for the new Aquino administration topursue the daang matuwid (righteouspath) by stopping the  plunder of ournatural resources and immediately reversing the anti-environment andanti-people policies and programs spawned by previous administrations. We thuschallenge our new President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, Jr. to heed the followingdemands that seek to address the most pressing and urgent problems besettingthe nation and environment:

On neoliberal policies and unequalinternational treaties

1. Review, reverse andscrap neoliberal government policies and unequal international treaties whichhave led to more wanton extraction, sell-out, and plunder of our naturalresources and environment.  

On mining

2. Immediately stop the MiningRevitalization Program and revoke Executive Order 270-A (National Policy Agendaon Revitalizing Mining in the Philippines). Declare a 100-day moratorium on theapproval of mining projects.  Cancelmulti-million peso midnight mining deals.

3. Recognize and uphold the laws passed bylocal government units (LGU) to protect their environment, includingmoratoriums on large-scale mining projects and bans on open-pit mining.

On forest and watershedmanagement and rehabilitation

4. Ban commercial logging until forest cover reaches a level required for abalanced ecology. Institute a genuine program to rehabilitate, reforest, andprotect watershed and forest areas. Allocate  ample funds forreforestation programs and ensure that their implementation and output can beeasily monitored by communities.

On climate change adaptationand mitigation

5. Formulate  and implement a national plan and programthat will build the capacity of our people and communities to adapt to andmitigate the impacts of climate change. This includes implementing a sound andeffective disaster risk reduction and preparedness program, especially invulnerable, poor, and environmentally-critical communities.

6. Reject false and market-based solutionsto climate change such as coal fired-power plants, incerase of coal mining,revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) and agrofuels. Develop andnationalize our renewable resources such as geothermal, wind and solar energyto ensure independence from imported and dirty fossil fuels.

On proper solid  waste management

7. Promote community-managed wastesegregation, composting and recycling. Immediately close existing opendumpsites. Immediately upgrade, expand and develop a national sewage system.Hold private corporations liable and responsible for the management of theirindustrial and toxic wastes. Ban the use of polystyrene (styrofoam) infast-food chains and support the development and promotion of moreecologically-sustainable alternatives.

On economic, socio-culturaland human rights violations

8. Ensure that justice, compensation andremediation is given to the victims of environmental disasters involvinggovernment neglect, as in the cases of the Aurora-Quezon flashfloods, Payatas garbage slide, toxic contaminationwithin former U.S. military bases, the Petron oil spill, Marcopper mine spill,Typhoon Ondoy damage, San Roque Dam flashflood, and many more.

9. Pursue justice for the environmentalactivists and leaders killed during the Arroyo administration.

10. Immediately stop the militarization ofrural communities affected by  mining,logging, energy and other government projects.

11. Protect environmental advocates fromharassment suits by supporting the refiling and passage of House Bill 5840, orthe Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) Act of 2009.

On clean governance andtransparency

12. Institute sweeping and radical reformswithin the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to clean itsstained reputation for brokering ecologically-destructive business transactionswith local and transnational corporations and reorient it towards genuinelyprotecting and wisely managing our environment and national patrimony.      

13. Uphold the people's right to freedom ofinformation by requiring that public documents such as Environment ComplianceCertificates, Environment Impact Assessments, Memorandum of Agreements, miningpermits and other related documents submitted by corporations be made easilyand widely available to the public for review.  

14. Form a commission that will investigateand prosecute local and national government officials who maintain vestedinterests in large-scale and small-scale mining, agrofuel plantations and otherenvironmentally critical projects.

15. Conduct an investigation and form acommission that will prosecute the environmental crimes of outgoing PresidentGloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

These demands can only be adopted and realized byenvironment-friendly, progressive and patriotic leaders and an honest and cleangovernment that will resolutely put first the welfare and the interest of the peopleand the environment above all else. The question that remains is if the Aquinoadministration is this kind of government and be true to his inaugural speechthat the Filipino people is indeed his ‘boss’.