By Jonathan L. Mayuga
A week before the electoral campaign kicked off, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) launched its own campaign for the environment.
The campaign aims to remind candidates of their responsibility in ensuring an environment-friendly electoral contest, while challenging voters to choose candidates who really care about the environment.
In launching the campaign, Environment Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje issued a statement imposing a joint memorandum circular signed by the DENR, the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Commission on Elections, which prohibits the cutting, destroying or injuring of trees along public roads, plazas, parks and school premises and other public grounds not designated as common poster areas.
At the same time, Paje also reminded candidates and their supporters to conduct post-election cleanup operations and urged the public to do their share by reporting to authorities cases of election-related littering.
‘Green’ candidates
Paje said the DENR’s voter-awareness campaign aims “to encourage Filipinos to choose and watch out for candidates who really care about the environment.”
The country’s top environment official has been saying that the environment should be an election issue. He has been holding elected local officials responsible for failing to do their job in enforcing environmental laws, such as Republic Act (RA) 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.
At the first Philippine Environment Summit on Wednesday, the DENR chief took a jab at local officials for their failure to implement RA 9003. He lamented that more than 15 years after the law took effect, there are still 440 open dumps and more than 180 controlled dumps all over the country that need to be shut down.
The DENR, he said, will press charges against local officials who failed to do their job. “As we speak, [Undersecretary] Jonas [Leones] and Ombudsman [Conchita Carpio-] Morales are now filing charges against local officials for failing to close open dumps,” Paje said.
Green voters
While the DENR focuses on making the upcoming 2016 elections “garbage-free,” several environmental groups have launched their own voter-education campaign—promising to mainstream the issue of environment in the coming election.
Filipino voters, they said, need to be educated more about equally pressing issues that still appear to be low in the order of priorities of most, if not all, national candidates. The issues included environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, pollution, climate change and disasters caused by natural calamities.
Asked what qualities they are looking for from the political candidates in the May elections, several netizens were quick to respond.
Renante Trinidad of Nueva Ecija and Monching Rivera Dungca of Bulacan said they want the next leaders to be truthful.
Ian Franklin of Tiaong, Quezon, said he will vote for candidates who are pro-people. “One who is not selfish, not corrupt and not abusive. One who cares for the nation,” he said in Filipino. Juneil Pasco Labad of Oroquieta City, Missamis Occidental, said that besides being pro-people, he will vote for somebody who is pro-God.
In an interview, Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE), admitted that, generally, voters would rather go for a candidate based on his or her personality, if not the latter’s position on gut issues on food security, hunger and poverty, health, education and corruption in the government more than their position on certain environmental issues or even the more compelling issue of climate change.
Green campaign
Along with other environmental groups, Kalikasan-PNE launched the Green Vote 2016 Campaign on February 10 to heighten the awareness of Filipino voters and the candidates about environmental issues.
Among the groups are Advocates of Science and Technology for the People (Agham), Agham Youth, Ban Toxics, Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines, Defend Ilocos, Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap, Kalikasan Youth, Katribu, Kilusang Mayo Uno, PoliSEA, Protect Sierra Madre, Religious of the Good Shepherd-JPIC, Save Freedom Island Movement, University of the Philippines Saribuhay and 350.org Pilipinas.
The Green Vote 2016 Campaign will scrutinize the track record and make public the environmental agenda of national candidates, Bautista said.
Most candidates, he noted, stick to gut issues which they believe voters could easily relate to.
According to Bautista, a survey among the national candidates would reveal their stand on pressing environmental issues, giving voters a more informed choice in casting their vote for the candidates who deserve their precious vote.
These issues include development of coal-fired power plants, logging, mining, solid waste and air pollution, free trade and transboundary waste, genetically modified organism, land conversion, including reclamation projects, agricultural plantations, climate change and extreme weather events, corruption in environmental governance and rights of environmental defenders.
He said such flash-point issues have aggravated the degraded state of the Philippine environment over the past five years. The Green Vote 2016 campaigners, Bautista said, will also serve as election campaign watchdog and that would shame candidates for election practices deemed harmful to the environment, such as the excessive use of plastic campaign paraphernalia, nailing posters on trees and receiving campaign funds from environmentally pollutive and destructive corporations. “It’s high time we made sure that our current and future political leaders are accountable for these issues,” he said.
Awareness at local level
He said this is the reason the green vote needs to be put forward.
“The issues, such as jobs and food, are important. But the problem is that the politicians do not have high regard for the environment,” he said in Filipino. However, Bautista said, at the local level, environment can be a major election issue and a candidate’s chances of winning depend largely on his position.
“In Mindoro, no pro-mining politician has won an election,” he said.
In areas where mining exist, Bautista said voters are very much aware of environmental issues because of their impact on agricultural production or on livelihood and the threat of serious disaster.
Platform on environment
This, however, is not the case at the national level, wherein candidates stick to gut issues, ignoring even the most pressing environmental issues. Chuck Baclagon of 350.org said, through the campaign, environmental groups want to contribute to forming an informed electorate that is not based on personality, advertisement or catchy and sexy slogans, but on platform of government with particular focus on the environment.
As environmental advocates, he said Green Vote 2016 campaigners would push for votes anchored on environmental platform of the candidates based on their track record and plans if they get elected.
He said all major issues are interconnected to the environmental woes besetting the country.
Kim Gargar of Panalipdan, Southern Mindanao, said, “Environment is always put behind, that is why this time we will push it as an election issue.”
He said both election and environment are about people.
“For us, election is about people, and environment is also about people, and they are intertwined…. As environmental advocates, this election is an opportunity for us to highlight the campaign for the environment,” he added.