Kamayan para sa Kalikasan

Come to this Environmental Forum held on the 3rd Friday every month, 10 a.m.--2 p.m. at the Kamayan-EDSA, by the Communicators’ League for Environmental Action and Restoration (CLEAR) and Sanib-Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan (SALIKA), fully sponsored by Kamayan.

All are invited!

SPECIAL: For November 2002 Editorial on DENR as a Hardship Post, please click here.

  JOURNAL ISSUES         

(arranged in the reverse-chronological order)

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  JOURNAL SECTIONS      

Sections of the regular four-page issue: 

> Forum Focus for the month, the main article in support of the forum topic for that month. The width of its title  display covers two out of three columns of the front page above the fold.

> Forum Echoes from the forum session of the preceding month, with subsequent developments, all in their larger process contexts. The width of its title  display covers two out of three columns of the front page above the fold.

> Editorial statement from the Kamayan Forum Journal editors generally in support of the Forum Focus. Acting editor for the time being is Ding Reyes, lead moderator of the forum.

> Cover Quote supporting the Forum Focus and/or coming from one of the Forum moderators or participants of previous sessions..

> Boxed Sidebar additional materials in support of either of the first two items in this list.

>Special Message / Ad Placement on the last page, from an entity that donates for the cost of lay-outing and printing this  issue of the Kamayan Forum Journal (KFJ)  Note: The perspective here is to increase the number of pages to at least 12, on the basis of success in seeking enough sustainable donations for it.

All are invited. to the  Kamayan para sa Kalikasan Environmental Forum held regularly since March 1990 on the 3rd Friday every month, 10 am-2pm at the Kamayan Restaurant along-EDSA, Mandaluyong City. It is convened jointly by the Communicators’ League for Environmental Action and Restoration (CLEAR) and Sanib-Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan (SALIKA), fully sponsored by Kamayan.  

Environment Department a ‘Hardship Post’

SECRETARIES of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources have come and gone, but still the over­all performance of DENR at any given time has depended more on the political will of their respective presidential bosses for environmental conservation. 

And because such political will has not been known to exist, the powerless secretaries had to suffer blackeyes from the viewpoint of a citizenry indignant over the de­partment’s dismal record.

When former DENR Sec. Jun Factoran spoke during the first-ever session of Kamayan para sa Kalikasan back in 1990, he was saying he faced a big challenge in the apparently anti-environment predospositions of the economic secretaries in Cory Aquino’s Cabinet. We sympathized with him and wished him luck in the effort to influence those adversaries for the sake of Mother Nature. Shortly before ending his term, however, he returned to the forum speaking much like a technocrat from NEDA.

Sec. Angel Alcala was even an environmentalist before he was drafted to head the DENR, but the department did not perform much better with him at the helm.

It would be safe to assume that most, if not all, who have  succumbed  to  the  draft  had  all  the  best  intentions  to clean up the DENR, to institute reforms and transform the department into an effective guardian of the natural en­vironment that it was created to be. When they speak of their plans and promises they are impassioned enough to convince many at least of the earnestness of their intentions.  However the public has always had reason to half-expect the plans and promises to be replaced sooner or later with whispered handwashings and other excuses. Ipit kami eh! Our hands are tied, we can do nothing but obey the president.  Such honesty in private whispers!

Actually, they can do something when their respective presidents order them to sign permits for environmentally-destructive projects. They can resign and deprive the Palace of a fall guy and a deodorant. The fact that they don’t choose that extremely difficult but very honorable option does not mean the option doesn’t exist.  It does!

It boils down to political will and integrity, not only the presidents’ but theirs.  President Gloria Arroyo reportedly ordered pointblank a DENR official to sign the ECC for the coal-fired plant Misamis Oriental. She could only do that if her underlings are more willing to completely lose their real honor and clean conscience than lose their jobs and their “honorable” titles. Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!  So pathetic, isn’t it?  How can we tell these hostages to escape?