Joint Statement
LANDSLIDE VICTIMS REAP WORST IMPACTS OF GMA'S POLICY OF PLUNDER AND DESTRUCTION
Joint Statement
February 22, 2005
LANDSLIDE VICTIMS REAP WORST IMPACTS
OF GMA'S POLICY OF PLUNDER AND DESTRUCTION
A barangay was completely buried in mud. Almost a hundred people were
confirmed dead and more than a thousand remain missing. Who is to blame? Who
is responsible?
Experts declare that St Bernard is a landslide-prone area. The town's
geological and physical characteristics -- steep and denuded mountain slope,
loose volcanic bedrock, proximity to an earthquake fault, and pathway of
tropical storms and monsoons-- were noted to have been the main causes for
the massive landslide. Almost the same reasons were given for previous
disasters such as the landslides in Panaoan Island and Aurora-North Quezon
in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
According to the Citizen's Disaster Response Center (CDRC), since 1995 to
2004, an average of 317 disasters occur every year, which affect an average
of nine million Filipinos. The annual data on disaster occurrences and
victims have been increasing throughout the years.
Have the people not learned? While natural calamities do occur,
environmental experts, as well as disaster managers, tell us that we can do
something to minimize it, or do something to mitigate its impact.
*More plunder, more disasters*
Yet, the more than a century of increasing destruction and plunder of our
natural resources is a major debacle which serious disaster managers in the
country will have to contend with. A consistently neo-colonial economic
policy of resource extraction is at the bottom of the precarious state of
our environment that worsens the vulnerability of our people to natural
disasters everyday.
Large-scale commercial and illegal logging, for instance, were the factors
blamed for the Ormoc flashflood and the Quezon landslide tragedies.
Large-scale mining is leaving a legacy of widespread destruction of our
mountains and the culprit behind the destruction of our major freshwater and
coastal ecosystems. One need only call to mind the mine tailings dumping in
Marinduque, Cebu, Benguet, and recently in Rapu-rapu, Albay. Mining and
logging are disastrous by themselves and they aggravate the situation at the
onset of natural calamities like typhoons and droughts.
Despite this, the Arroyo government stubbornly insists on the promotion of
extractive industries. As bureaucrats gain from the policy of allowing
foreign-owned transnational corporations and local big businesses to profit
from ravaging our natural resources, our people our left to reap the
horrifying impacts of every calamity that visits the country.
*Environmental rehabilitation, disaster prevention*
At the rate that our natural resources are being sold to the highest
bidders, the country requires an ever larger political will to rehabilitate
it. This appears far from the priorities of the current government. While
30% of the national budget goes to servicing the country's debts, less and
less funds go to environmental rehabilitation. In 2003, the government was
only able to reforest 13,000 hectares of denuded forest, while the country
lost around 100,000 hectares to logging.
*Disaster Preparedness and Management*
What happened in St. Bernard brings to the fore the prevailing disaster
response system in the country which is reactive, emergency-focused and
relief-centered. As government allocates a measly 0.1% of the national
budget for calamity funds, it fails to provide preventive and mitigating
measures to lessen the destruction and deaths in natural disasters.
Life-saving measures such as local warning systems and disaster preparedness
trainings are absent in almost all disaster- prone communities in such
provinces as Southern Leyte, Benguet, Mountain Province, Nueva Vizcaya,
Kalinga Apayao, Abra, Catanduanes and Ifugao. Sources from the DENR reveal
that for the past years, the agency has refrained from disseminating
geo-hazard maps owing to complaints that such maps deter investors or tend
to downgrade the value of land properties.
Worst, funds allocated and generated for the needs of the victims of
calamities fail to trickle down to them and are lost to corruption. The
government still has to account for the millions of calamity funds and
relief aid from the recent landslide and flashflood disasters in Quezon and
Aurora.
*Arroyo Government, the worst tragedy *
To steal votes and deprive the people of their right to suffrage. To allow
plunder of the country's resources, at the risk of further disasters and the
loss of a future to our people. To not prevent or mitigate impacts of
calamities, when these could have been prevented. What moral reason has the
Arroyo government to insist on staying in power?
1. We hold the Arroyo government responsible for the disasters in
Leyte and for many similarly situated provinces in the country, for its
avowed policy of promoting massive resource extraction that only benefits
the rich MNCs, local bureaucrats and big business, at the people's expense,
and for being inutile in the prevention and mitigation of landslides, &
flashfloods when it is all along aware of impending disasters on the people.
1. We demand a stop to large scale, profit-oriented extractive
industries for export that hardly provide long-term jobs and benefit for the
people and the country, and instead cause heightened vulnerability of local
folks.
1. We call on the immediate relocation to safer grounds of communities
at risk from natural calamities such as landslide and flashfloods and the
provision not only of relief but of alternative livelihood and services to
displaced communities.
1. We demand the immediate institution of local warning systems,
conduct of disaster preparedness workshops and development of disaster
management plans in landslide-prone communities. ###
Signed by:
Kalikasan-People's Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE)
Center for Environmental Concerns-Philippines (CEC)
Citizens Disaster Response Center (CDRC)
Brigadang Berde
Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayang Pilipino (KAMP)
National Council of Churches of the Philippines- Ecology Desk
Samahan ng mga Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan
(AGHAM)
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)
Promotion of Church People's Response (PCPR)
Interfaith Bishops for Peace, Justice and Integrity of Creation
*Contact Persons: *
*CLEMENTE BAUTISTA 9248756, 09283448797*
*FRANCES QUIMPO 9209099*
--
CLEMENTE BAUTISTA
national coordinator
Kalikasan-People's Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE)
No.26 Matulungin St. Bgy, Central, Quezon City, Philippines 1100
Tel. No. +63-2-9248756 Fax No. +63-2-9209099
Email: kalikasan.pne@gmail.com, kpne@edsamail.com.ph, royalroi@yahoo.com