Green groups bewail ‘eco-unfriendly’ SONA

Campaign for Land Use Policy Now! * Sagip GUBAT * SOS-Yamang Bayan

July 27, 2011

PRESS RELEASE

Green groups bewail ‘eco-unfriendly’ SONA

Keep urging passage of green bills

Environmental activists said their vision of a ‘green-minded’ President will have to wait as they try to move on from a “disappointing, eco-unfriendly” State of the Nation Address (SONA) last Monday.

More than three thousand of them paraded around the Quezon Memorial Circle last Saturday (July 23, 2011), calling on the President to make his “straight path” green (“gawing luntian ang tuwid na daan”, a play on his campaign slogan). But the Green Parade organizers lamented that President Benigno Aquino III barely mentioned the environment in his SONA, let alone his environmental roadmap.

“Sa ngayon ay wala kaming makitang malinaw na patutunguhan ng kanyang tuwid na daan. Ang pagpapahalaga sa kalikasan ay pagpapahalaga sa karapatan, kabuhayan, at kinabukasan. Bago siya magsalita ng iba ay ito dapat ang unahin niya,” the Campaign for Land Use Policy Now! (CLUP Now!), GUBAT (saGipin Ugat ng Bu­­hay At Tubig), and SOS-Yamang Bayan networks said in a statement.

“Mamumuhunan tayo sa taumbayan, habang namumuhunan din sa kalikasan’, ang pinangako ni PNoy sa kanyang SONA. Umaasa kaming mapapatunayan niya ito sa sa kanyang SONA technical report, sa budget, at sa mga gagawin pa niya sa mga susunod na taon,” they added.

The networks led the Green Parade with Representatives Kaka Bag-ao of Akbayan Party-list, Teddy Brawner Baguilat Jr. of Ifugao, and Mel Senen Sarmiento of Western Samar, who are among the networks’ champions of the land use, forest resources, and minerals management bills in Congress. They reiterated their hope that the President and the other lawmakers will immediately pass the said green bills.

“Hangga't hindi naipapasa ang land use act, mawawalang saysay ang anuman sa magagandang plano ng administrasyong ito. Dahil sa kawalan ng  pambansang batas ukol sa paggamit at pamamahala ng lupa, nagkakaroon ito ng  direktang epekto sa  katubigan. Hangga’t walang pambansang batas ukol sa land use, na magsisiguro at magsasaalang-alang ng mga karapatan at interes ng mga batayang sector, walang tunay na pagbabago tayong maituturing,” said Ruperto ‘Ka Uper’ Aleroza, fisherman and president of the Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Samahan sa Kanayunan, a national federation of farmers, fisherfolk and other rural-based organizations, and a leader of the CLUP Now! and Save our Fisheries networks.  Nowhere in PNOY’s SONA did he address the issue or importance of land use in paving the way for his “tuwid na landas.”

Haribon Foundation and the rest of the Sagip GUBAT Network lamented that President Aquino attributed flooding problems on the “incessant and illegal cutting down of trees,” saying that most of the blame should be on commercial logging.

“If sustainable forest management was truly implemented decades ago, our forest cover should not have dropped to just about a quarter of the country's total land area,” said Anabelle Plantilla, Haribon's chief operating officer. “We need to pass the Forest Resources Bill so we can ensure that our forests will continue to provide timber, food, and clean water, as well as help regulate the climate, now and in the future.”

Haribon also noted that the SONA's reference to the National Greening Program, as launched through Executive Order 26, emphasized its main purpose which is to provide livelihood rather than  saving lives by focusing on more comprehensive and appropriate reforestation efforts.

Judy Pasimio of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, lead convenor of SOS-Yamang Bayan Network, remarked that while there is no direct mention of investments and private-public-private partnerships, the latest SONA is clearly addressing foreign investors.

“While we are not opposing foreign investments per se, PNoy’s first year has clearly shown his bias for large-scale mining investments. The absence of program for environmental protection, or sustainable development of natural resources in his speech, strengthens this perception,” she said.

“The task then for us advocates of a pro-people, pro-environment minerals framework, towards a more sustainable, equitable and nurturing development path, is to strengthen our ranks in the hope that in the next SONA he will address the interests of the rural poor communities, who are dependent on natural resources,” Pasimio added. “We hope that the allies in the Congress and Senate will be with us as we push for the passage of the alternative minerals management bills.”

In Koronadal City, South Cotabato, more than 100 indigenous peoples’ leaders and representatives who gathered for the annual State of Indigenous Peoples Address (SIPA) watched and listened to a live broadcast of the SONA. The SIPA participants were dismayed with the President’s report as there was no mention of the plight of the indigenous peoples, who have been at the forefront of ravages brought by large-scale mining and other ‘development’ projects.

Conchita Bigong, a Mangyan leader from Mindoro who joined the National IP Women Gathering and the SIPA, said,“Tumigil na daw ang paggamit ng wangwang sa lahat ng ahensya. Pero tayong mga katutubo at katutubong kababaihan, kailangan natin ng malaking WANG-WANG! Para marinig nya tayo at malaman nya ang tunay na kalagayan nating mga katutubo at katutubong kababaihan! Kailangang WANG-WANGin ng gobyerno ni P-Noy ang malakihang pagmimina sa bansa!”

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For more information:

Denise Fontanilla, Haribon Foundation – 0922-8151938; rainforestation@haribon.org.ph

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