Bacolod City - Green Alert Negros declares 2009 as a year of shame and contractions relating to the decisions of the national and the provincial government in response to the environmental issues confronting the province.
GAN was able to raise strong cases against the government on their decisions and endorsement on some of critical environmental issues in Negros like the geothermal project of the Energy Development Corporation inside Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park, the illegal structures inside the Northern Negros Natural Park including the controversial irrigation project in Don Salvador Benedicto and the lifting of the GMO ban of the Organic Island program of the province.
EDC Geothermal Project in Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park
In July of 2008, GAN and Save Mt. Kanlaon Coalition filed a Temporary Restraining Order in the local court in Bacolod to the entry of EDC inside the 12.5 hectares buffer zone in MKNP wherein petitioners included children. The petitioners came from Guintubdan in La Carlota, Bago City and Murcia City, which is part of the territorial jurisdiction of Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park. Atty. Andrea Si acted as the lead counsel for the petitioners.
By the time the case was filed in the court, the legal counsels of EDC, DENR, DOE and PAMB would create a circus act in every proceeding by delaying substantial arguments and stick to technicalities. The dirty tricks of the lawyers of the defendant proved costly to the petitioners wherein the presiding judge retired from service which kept the case hanging in the early months of 2009.
In March 4, 2009, GAN released a report on the water contamination of the drilling activities of EDC to the rice fields in Purok Gayas, Barangay Minoyan in Murcia which is approximately 3 kilometers away from the actual drilling site. More than 20 hectares of rice fields were affected by the contamination and this is owned by 53 farmers who are mostly members of the people’s organization that EDC organized. It is suspected that there is already contamination in Pula River since EDC started drilling in their old well pads where effluence are flushed in the river and only later that the farmers claimed that contamination in the water became stronger wherein the water has awful smell, salty and is dark blue. The effects of the contamination to the rice fields which includes stunted growth, gradual killing and discoloration of the rice wherein some of the farmers are tilling the land for more that 20 years and this is the first time that they have experienced such problem.
The said report was submitted to the Governor Isidro Zayco, Board Member Mae Javellana and the rest of the Provincial Board, PENRO Livino Duran and Provincial Environment Management Officer Edwin Abanil but no substantial actions were taken to the said issue.
In May of this year the Protected Area Superintendent for MKNP, Mr. Julie Rex Molavin filed a subpoena against 31 members of Green Alert Negros for violating a trekking permit inside MKNP during GAN’s Protest Climb in June 2008. GAN called the said action of the PaSU as nothing but political harassment since no case was filed to any individuals or group who trekked MKNP since regulated trekking was allowed in the natural park.
In response to the subpoena of the PaSU, GAN categorically denied the charge that they violated Section 15 (B), No. 11, of RA 9154, upon the following considerations: a) that there entry into the protected area of Mt. Kanlaon did not require a PAMB permit as the purpose was not any of those enumerated under the said Section 15 (B), No. 11, for which the law requires PAMB permit and b) their entry into the protected area of Mt. Kanlaon was precisely to ensure that the said area should remain protected and inviolable as mandated by the law.
GAN also made repeated request to SP Mae Javellana to enter the 12.5 hectares buffer zone which EDC cleared for their drilling but the honorable member of the provincial board denied the request of organization asserting that they don’t want to be influenced. However, GAN stressed that the denial of the Provincial Board is a clear manifestation that they are hiding something from the public.
Illegal Structures in Northern Negros Natural Park
During the annual Panikang-tikang trek inside the Northern Negros Natural Park last April 2009. GAN questioned the irrigation project in Don Salvador Benedicto which cuts about 6 kilometers from Barangay Sumilang to Barangay Kumaliskis. The said project was also highlighted in the Declaration of Panikang-tikang which GAN presented to Mayor Marxlen de la Cruz.
In the meeting with Mayor de la Cruz, GAN raised that the communities living adjacent to the irrigation project which uses the water source for both drinking and irrigation where not informed or consulted about the project. In response, Mayor de la Cruz stressed that the project is for the people of Don Salvador and he asked GAN to just keep its mouth shut.
However, GAN pursued the issue and later declared it illegal since it’s already inside the natural park and the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) has to decide on development projects inside the park which at that time no PAMB was created for NNNP. GAN also submitted the Declaration to Governor Isidro Zayco, the members of the Provincial Board, Provincial Environment Management Officer Edwin Abanil and then newly installed PENRO Jessie Vego.
On June 4th, GAN met with PENRO Jessie Vego to discuss the said issue. GAN presented the facts of the case including several photos of the area. PENRO Vego then asked CENRO Joan Gerangaya if he knows about the project and the CENRO official denied knowledge of the project. GAN also asked if the proponent which is the DSB LGU has secured and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the project since it is inside a protected area and both PENRO Vego and CENRO Gerangaya could not answer the query of GAN.
On July 8, 2009, OIC Arthur Tubera of CENRO, Bacolod City has sent letter to Mayor Marxlen de la Cruz informing him to put the project under status quo and halt temporarily its construction. By July 17, PENRO Jessie Vego forwarded the Memorandum of OIC, CENRO Bacolod to the Regional Executive Director, Attention: Regional Director-EMB, regarding the irrigation project, requesting that Office to conduct field assessment, validation and evaluation of the Project to determine whether or not said project requires the issuance of ECC or CNC.
In a recent meeting of GAN with PENRO Jessie Vego, they have learned that the Protected Area Management Board was already created for NNNP and during the October 12 special meeting of the board which was presided by DSB Mayor Marxlen de la Cruz, the Negros Forest and Ecological Foundation, Inc or NFEFI moved to recommend that the irrigation project in DSB be given an ECC. NFEFI is also the NGO who sits in the TWG created for the EDC geothermal project inside the buffer zone in MKNP.
GAN condemns the act of NFEFI in endorsing and praising illegal and anti-environment projects like the EDC geothermal project inside MKNP and the illegal irrigation in Don Salvador Benedicto.
Proposed Lifting on GMO Ban
In a bizarre twist of event, the Provincial Government was put into question in its plans to lift the ban on genetically modified organisms which is considered the landmark provision of the Negros Organic Island. The Provincial Government was pressured by poultry and hog producers citing that banning of GMOs will kill the industry and will put the economy of the province at stake.
A debate whether or not the ban will be lift or not brewed wherein both proponents and anti-GMO advocates threw points. In a scandalous fashion, the Department of Agriculture sent Dr. Saturnina Halos, the department’s Biotech Advisory Group chairperson. Dr. Halos warns a possible collapse of the sugar, livestock and poultry industry, if the ordinance banning the entry of GMOs be it living or non-living, is strictly enforced in Negros Occidental.
Dr. Halos also said that if Negros Occidental pushes to become an organic bowl, farmers will have to follow stringent organic farming rules, which includes non-use of fertilizers. Dr. Halos was invited as resource speaker together with Alicia Ilaga, Director of the Department of Agriculture’s Biotech Program Office by the SP to shed light on the effects of GMO on human health and environment, while the controversial ordinance is being reviewed.
Ilaga said that with the enforcement of the ordinance, “You will kill your strength in livestock and poultry industry, because there is no exclusive non-GMO feeds in the country.” she added that even mixed feeds contain GMO enzymes.
In response, GAN stressed that “it seems both Halos and Ilaga don’t know what they are saying. It seems that they are protecting agro-transnational corporations who control both seeds and agricultural inputs which is killing farmers all over the world. They should understand that it was the Green Revolution in the 70’s which eroded the natural farming practices which includes organic farming because of the introduction of synthetic and chemical fertilizers.”
GAN pursued its position to the Provincial Government not to lift the ban on GMOs but rather uphold organic agriculture which is on the first place the very essence of the Organic Island program. GAN also asserted that the Provincial Government should apply precautionary principle on the said issue. However, the call of GAN fell into deaf ears wherein the Provincial Board still entertained the idea of lifting the ban.
On September 15, 10 members of GAN declared to hold an indefinite hunger strike in-front of the Provincial Government to press its position to the members of the SP not to lift the ban on GMOs but rather uphold and respect organic agriculture. The said hunger strike proved tough to the members of GAN wherein on the 6th year, one of the hunger strikers and the only female in the group collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.
The hunger strike was able to gain support from different organizations from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The organizations made their statement of support and appealed to the Provincial Government and the members of the Provincial Board not to lift the ban.
The Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE) that has been campaigning against Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and Genetic Engineering (GE) since 1998, in its statement stressed that together with other civil society organizations that have been campaigning against GMOs for the past years, we have lauded the Negros Occidental local government when it passed Provincial Ordinance #07 in 2007, which “institutes stringent measures towards the protection of biodiversity and attainment of the status of Negros as an Organic Food Island by BANNING the entry, importation, introduction, planting, growing, selling and trading of genetically modified plants and animals within the territorial jurisdiction of the province of Negros Occidental, providing penalties for violations thereof, and for other purpose.”
Further, the statement stressed that the proposed amendments would not only water down the ordinance, but it would render the whole law as useless and would put to waste all the hard work and victories that the local government of Negros Occidental has been putting all its effort in, especially last April 2009, after a shipment of genetically modified corn was discovered and rejected. It will be shameful, not just for the legislative leaders and local government officials, but also to the whole province, which has vigilantly fought for the upholding of the ordinance in spite of all the controversies and conflicts that go with the passing and enforcement of such ordinance.
The GAN hunger strikers decided to end its 9 days strike when Bishop Vicente Navarra released his statement of support and appealed to the strikers to put an end in the said sacrifice and seek other means. Further, the Bishop stressed that the Diocese of Bacolod urges the provincial officials to desist from amending the ordinance under whatever pretenses. As elected officials they have responsibility to listen and act not for the profit of a few but for the good of the many. Finally, the statement stressed that as Bishop of Bacolod Diocese, I strongly urged the Provincial Government to be guided by its Christian conscience to ward off pressures dictated by personal and selfish gains and only to uphold the common good assured by Provincial Ordinance No. 07.
However, everything fell to deaf ears again. Trying to justify its previous position to amend Provincial Ordinance 07, SP members Gary Acuna, Nehemias de la Cruz and Enrique Miguel Lacson went to Australia and tried to get some answers if organic agriculture and GMOs can co-exist. As expected, they asserted that it can. No wonder, they went to a conference that mainly discusses co-existence of GM and organic produce that is obviously organized by GM advocates and proponents.
GAN asserted that 2009 showed the conspiracy between politicians and an NGO who calls itself environmentalist. A conspiracy of shame and contradiction, GAN added.
“Shame because their concept of justice is prejudicial. While small upland dwellers are apprehended and imprisoned for cutting trees inside the protected area for their daily subsistence, private corporations like EDC and politicians like the De la Cruz of DSB, among others are free and can do anything they want to systematically cut century old trees and erect structures”, the group pointed.
“Let us be reminded on what happened in Cadiz City last 2008 wherein children who are on hunger strike with their mothers caused the death of a 3-year old boy. The hunger strike started in July 5, 2008 as a result of the detention of the thirteen (13) men charged with illegal logging. What EDC, the De la Cruz of DSB, etc did is worst compared to the 13 men charged by Task Force Ilahas”, GAN said.
GAN added that 2009 is also a year of contradictions since the Provincial Government is talking about climate change yet they are the culprits behind the clearing of the province remaining forests like Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park and Northern Negros Natural Park. They are also ignorant on the impacts of climate change like aggravated natural hazard events such as floods, etc wherein instead of thinking hazard specific prevention and mitigation measures to reduce disaster risks, all they did is to further put the entire province at risk to disasters.
“Rest assured that 2009 will be the last for the incumbent politicians that desecrated our natural heritage and violated environmental laws and policies. The year 2010 will judge their actions and GAN will be in the frontlines to ensure the demise of their political careers”. GAN asserted.
With reports from Mark Cervantes
