Press Statement: Duterte’s first SONA: A promising start, a challenge for bigger, bolder steps for the environment

PRESS STATEMENT
28 July 2016

Duterte’s first SONA: A promising start, a challenge for bigger, bolder steps for the environment

We in the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) welcome the promising statements made by President Rodrigo Duterte in his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered last Monday. We commend his pro-environment and pro-people positions on environmental issues, while at the same time urge him to rethink and reconsider some of his policies that have adverse implications for the environment.

Being a staunch critic of destructive mining, President Duterte once again warned against mining corporations that cause destruction to our environment. In the short span since the president’s first day up to the present, the current administration has already penalized erring mining companies through the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Gina Lopez, such as the suspension of erring mining companies operating in Zambales and Palawan provinces.

We support Duterte’s consistent pronouncement that it will review all existing permits not just of mining but also of logging and other environmentally sensitive projects. This review should be anchored on the plight and interests of communities who have long suffered from the negative impacts of environmental destruction. It should comprehensively assess the various companies’ track records in complying with the highest environmental standards, and respecting people’s rights of communities affected by their operations.

The DENR should further conduct genuine consultations and dialogues with various grassroots communities, and make them partners of this comprehensive review. Any company assessed with a concrete track record of environmental destruction, community displacement, and human rights violation should immediately have their permits revoked and their operations closed down.

We urge the current administration to show its earnestness in ending the suffering of mining-affected communities by stepping up efforts in reorienting the country’s current mining policy, the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, away from corporate and foreign interests towards genuinely addressing the people’s needs.

The Mining Act of 1995 has long allowed the liberalization of our mineral resources, opening it up to the rapacious plunder of our mineral resources by foreign corporations and their local compradors. A profit-driven and foreignd-dominated large-scale mining industry consequently rapidly accelerates the rapid destruction of our environment, but it contributes negligibly to our country’s employment and economy.

Until this law is replaced by a pro-people and pro-environment mining policy such as the People’s Mining Bill, the crises wrought by big mining will remain a chronic pox upon our people, lands, and environment.

Pres. Duterte has also mentioned the development of Laguna Lake, particularly his plans to transform the lake into an economic zone showcasing ecotourism. The development of the lake should primarily focus on rehabilitation, to genuinely contribute to uplifting the lives of the poor fisherfolk, who Duterte himself said should be the prime beneficiary of the Lake’s bounty.

Thus, any project that would result to the displacement of fisherfolk communities should be rejected. The lingering plans to pursue the stalled reclamation and construction activities for the Laguna Lake Expressway Dike Project (LLEDP) should be permanently repudiated by the Duterte government.

Pres. Duterte has again firmly reiterated his stand against the impositions of the Paris Climate Agreement, stating that the country needs to utilize cheap coal in order to industrialize, and maintaining that it is unfair that the top polluter countries, all industrialized nations, do not shoulder bigger emissions cuts.

We agree that the top polluter countries should have greater responsibility to cut their emissions and redress the low-carbon but high-vulnerability countries, and that our country must strive to build national industries to build our capacities to confront the impacts of climate change. But the emerging reality is that national industrialization is possible without coal, through the utilization of our indigenous and renewable energy sources in the context of clean energy technologies fast becoming cost-competitive and accessible.

More important is the environmental and health impacts of coal, known as the dirtiest energy source. We invite Pres. Duterte to visit the communities living adjacent to coal power plants, especially in the country’s oldest coal power operation in Calaca, Batangas, for him to witness how this pollutive energy source has led to the deterioration of health and loss of livelihood of thousands of families, and the degradation of air and water quality in its environs.

With an overwhelming satisfaction rate as president in Duterte’s first few weeks, the Filipino people are very expectant that change will indeed come under his presidency. We urge him to continue to be open and listen to environmental advocates most especially to grassroots communities, and take bigger and bolder steps in pursuing a new policy regime that will genuinely work for national development and environmental protection.#