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The usual worrisome environmental issues keep surfacing but are not
being permanently resolved for the better. Granted that it would be
a struggle to upend pernicious practices and their powerful backers,
if there are laws that are in place to address these very
anti-environmental behavior, should not they then be implemented? It
is to be remembered that the environment cannot always rebound back
after being maltreated, that natural resources are not capable of
surviving rampaging depletion, that our very future is being
compromised when the means to live in it is unavailable or absent.
Apparently the Solid Waste Law (Ecological Solid
Wste Management Act of 2000 known as Republic Act 9003) is being
honored more in the breach than in compliance. There remain 826 dump
sites in various parts of the country despite the fact that they
should have been done away with by Feb. 27, 2006, all of more than
two years ago. There is an Environmental Ombudsman to supervise
compliance but upon questioning by the Joint Congressional Oversight
Committee he could not quite say what formal action for compliance
the office has taken to implement the law. It seems only
non-government organizations are willing to file cases against
non-complying local governments.
The key factor in the Solid Waste Law is the
segregation of solid waste as well as the closing of open dump
sites. To implement these rules there has to be funding for the
Environmental Management Bureau of the DENR to move towards exerting
compliance. But as the joint committee found out, there has been no
funding for the law since 2001. In effect, the law is a dead letter
law decorating our current legislative output but not being paid any
attention or given any importance. This is criminal neglect on the
part of the national and local governments. If allowed to keep the
status quo this country will soon be a land of garbage dumps,
causing disease, inefficient waste disposal, unsightly landscapes
and, worst of all, the visible effect of violation of a law with
impunity.
The same goes for our rampant inattention and
indifference to the abuse of our natural resources such as the
proliferation of fishpens in our freshwater lakes like Laguna de Bay
and Taal Lake. For some decades now, fishpens have dangerously
altered the natural environments of these lakes by uncontrolled
growth and improper management of their practices. In this way
fishpens now are responsible for the lack of oxygen in the waters
they use, the accumulation of waste that make the natural conditions
of these bodies of water unsustainable and, finally, that produce a
product that tastes more like mud than fresh fish. Yet despite
pronouncements of removal of the fishpens both by the secretary of
the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources and the
governor of Batangas Province, there is no wholesale and effective
removal of the fishpens.
Over at Siargao Island in the east of the
Philippine Archipelago, an island of extraordinary beauty and
abundant marine resources, its congressman, Francisco Matugas had to
make a privileged speech denouncing the unabated illegal fishing in
the area that is poisoning and disturbing the marine resources which
will have bad consequences for the area and its inhabitants. These
fishing methods are illegal by our Fisheries Code yet they are
allowed to go on with nary a government agency stopping them.
Siargao is an ecotourism destination. Its attraction depends on its
pristine, sustainable and protected environment. The livelihood of
the majority of its residents depends on ecotourism activities and
fishing. If these elements are no longer viable, there will be
grievous consequences and one more destroyed natural resource in
this country. How long can we keep this up?
It has been bruited about both in the public
hearings by the joint committee as well as public opinion that the
usual powerful members of our society are behind these depredations.
Garbage collecting entities which are rich are also powerful because
of their means which they have not hesitated to use to keep these
dumps open. They make more money if they are left alone. Segregation
cuts into their income. The fishpen operators invoke their set of
powerful patrons to stymie their removal. Illegal fishing may be the
result of lack of funding for monitoring and implementing the law.
But then again they may have influential local government officials
on their side for one reason or another.
All in all, the above reflects not a democracy
where the good of the majority is paramount but a feudal
establishment where lords interfere with the law and make their own
with the cooperation of their feudal vassals. This is no way to face
the future.
miongpin@yahoo.com
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