Php 70.00 Vol. 44 No. 1 • JANUARY 2010 - IMPACT Magazine Online!

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STATEMENTS significant reduction of carbon emissions. This will be addressed during the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen on December 7-18, 2009. For our beloved country and people, our emotion deepens from worry into trepidation. Our socio-economic problems are deeply rooted in an unjust and ecologically unsustainable development model anchored on wanton objectivism and irreversible exploitation. The model contorted wealth creation through environmental degradation and desolation, notably the following: “...massive deforestation of the archipelago, disembowelling of the land through destructive mining, harvesting of protective mangroves and coral reefs, poisoning of air, river, land and water systems using chemical toxins, vehicular smoke spews, industrial effluents, conversion of watershed areas, hillsides, beach fronts, parks and even irrigated lands into exclusive leisure resorts, golf course, housing, real estate and infrastructural projects for the moneyed elite and foreign investors.” The above-cited destruction of the Philippine environment was undertaken for the benefit of the few under the careful protection of the governing agencies. With the inceptive climate change impacts, the ultimate and most vulnerable victims are the poor without the means to parry climatic blows. From the lowlying areas of Laguna and Pangasinan to the mountains of the Cordilleras and Sierra Madre to even coastal Visayas and Mindanao, Typhoons Ondoy, Pepeng and Santi collaborated to manifest their destructive might and force. More than a thousand perished, a million hectares of agricultural lands inundated, and millions are now facing an uncertain future due to lost homes, personal belongings, livelihoods and lives. On their behalf, we appeal to the Philippine government for justice – legal, social and humanitarian. We are appalled that the existing development model engendered a system of unsustainable consumption backed up by unsustainable fiscal debts, irresponsible extraction of natural resources, and the amoral reliance on the inward remittances of a third of our labor force scouring outside of the country and away from their families even now. We view with grievous helplessness the policy framework that directly caused deindustrialization and financialization of agriculture, aquaculture and fishing. Jobs in millions and more were lost. We are disturbed that our consumption driven economy is based on imported products. We demand for the breaking of this vicious cycle of unsustainable production, unemployment, mass poverty and environmental degradation. We call on both the government and civil society to work together towards a virtuous ascent of environmental stewardship and replenishment, shift to sustainable agro-industries, and mobilize people for reconstruction and systemic renewal. We submit to our people and government our asset reform and climate change-adaptive agenda—agrarian, housing, aquatic, ancestral domain and support, urban community renewal, rebuilding of rural and coastal communities, and human resource development canopy—to be addressed based on a priority program to be discussed with the concerned sectors and groupings. We subscribe to the call of the United Nations Environmental Program and its global partners for the resolute implementation by all the countries for the needed mitigation and adaptation measures to prepare and protect the human race against climate change. We support the call for climate justice, such that the rich developed countries which contribute most to global carbon emissions and the consequential alterations of the global climatic patterns undertake deep measurable cuts in their carbon emissions and contribute towards a global fund for climate change mitigation. We move that the issue be discussed during the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. In the Philippine context, the program for environmental renewal must be holistic, coherent and socially inclusive. Given that any economy is a derivative of its environment, the two are in fact stranded in normal or crisis period. The program should therefore seek to reverse the said onerous developmental policies. We further call for a particular emphasis on the multiple crises in farming, jobs, livelihoods, energy and the economy. We positively support any and all efforts towards rebuilding our communities, our schools, our farms, our roads, our jobs, and our small and medium-size businesses in the disasteraffected areas. We must bring back the forest, we must plant trees. We call on all local government units, including those in urban centers, to place reforestation on the very top of their development 24 IMPACT • January 2010 Photo courtesy of Rodne Galicha
STATEMENTS agenda. In addition, all segments of society should be actively involved in tree planting and forest cover. We call on the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to cease and desist from acting as a department for natural resources extraction. Instead, we seek a moratorium on open-pit mining operations, attainment of the requirement of reforestation, watershed management, community ecology, livelihood and jobs preservation—as mandates to be resolved positively. We call for: (a) watershed-based planning and development, to consider the practical use of less expensive systems like serial Sabo dams; (b) proactive and anticipatory approaches to climate change and disaster management using adaptation and mitigation measures; (c) agricultural production systems reform from preparation to post-harvest, and a shift to biodiverse, integrated and organic farming; (d) promotion of sustainable or ecological consumption, e.g., brown rice, high-fiber diet, less meat and preference for on-season locallygrown food; (e) Information and communication technologies, e.g., GIS, GPS and remote sensing to monitor climate changes and the widest public dissemination of their likely impact on farming and livelihood; and (f) promotion of the values of green living, green industry and green economy. We support the twin struggles of the poor and the excluded for economic and environmental renewal, in particular – farmers for agrarian reform and sustainable agriculture; urban poor for housing reform, anti-demolition and river and urban renewal; fisherfolks for fishery and blue or aquatic reform; indigenous peoples for ancestral domain and a ban on illegal logging and large-scale mining in their ancestral domain; and the workers for decent and green jobs through more and greener industries. We see the recent crises and debilitation as clear and urgent signals for mobilization to plan and undertake a multi-dimensional reform program involving the environment, asset reform and economy. To finance the program, we call on government to declare a moratorium on foreign debt servicing (now standing at US$53 billion (equivalent to double the proposed national budget for 2010). We advocate for the use of a third of the debt-servicing portion be reallocated to this rebuilding program. The government should pursue negotiations for the swapping of this atrocious debt in exchange for climate change adaptation. Let this environmental-economic renewal program aimed at rebuilding our country and the different urban/ rural communities be inclusively a people-based undertaking. Let this be a collaborative and unified program of the nation, involving popular consultation and people participation in the process, community by community and at all levels. Let there be social partnership between and among government (at all levels), working people, Church, business community, indigenous people and other sectors of society. We were made stewards of the Earth. Yet, we are squandering it away – to the extent that our own survival is now challenged. As signatories to this important document, we therefore plead for unity through sharing and nurturing with equity, productivity and sustainability. Our programs and activities cover all levels – from frameworks and policies to development of communities, families and individuals as coherent members of the global people. We subscribe to universal and collective actions between nations and peoples that would preserve and bring veritable progress to the Filipino people. To this cause we congregate as a singular network to be known as the Climate Change Congress of the Philippines (CCCP). We declare unwavering commitment to pursue the above reforms through all possible means and the God-given strength bestowed on us, individually and collectively. We unite to concretize “fairness in our fragile world”. In God’s name, we are connected! Mabuhay ang Pilipino! Mabuhay ang Kalikasan! Ipaglaban ang Katarungang Panlipunan! Signatories: Farmers, Indigenous Peoples, Urban Poor, Fisherfolk, Labor, Business, Religious, Academe and Scientists, Legislator, Advocates, Organizations (Names of signatories have been omitted due to space limitations. Eds.) Volume 44 • Number 1 25
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Page 3 and 4: EDITORIAL A gov’t of 4 trillion d
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