ESSC - Awards in the US, problems in the Philippines

Back home, in our Philippine backyard, there are environmental concerns that cannot wait for awards to highlight the urgency of effective actions and responses needed.

We have had El Nino since four months ago and the drought we are experiencing is expected to continue until June. This drought is severely damaging the agriculture sector, hitting both large and small farmers alike with crop losses as irrigation systems conk out. This drought is drying up dams and causing massive and regular power outages in the country, with Mindanao hardest hit. This drought is warming lakes, rivers, and marine areas. This drought is leading to forest fires. And for those in the urban centers, water shortages face households, offices, schools, and other establishments.

By the time the rainy season sets in sometime June and July, flooding and landslide prone areas will again face the typhoons as hopefully a new President is sworn in. Relief and rehabilitation will be put in motion, schools will be temporarily closed as evacuees take over student rooms and desks. The National Disaster Coordinating Council, the Philippine National Red Cross, affected local government units, foundations will have to prepare the rubber boats, plastic bags of packed noodles and rice, and dry clothes and blankets to feed and comfort the victims.

Solid waste and smoke belchers are urban problems that are getting some responses in some cities. But garbage dumps outside the cityscapes and tourist havens are still great seducers, as communities mushroom and ring these areas in Baguio, Iloilo, Cebu, Davao, Malaybalay, the other side of Boracay, and others not mentioned. All these great tourist spots, all these garbage dumps.

Logging activities, legal and illegal, will continue to play hide and seek with government watchdogs, as they continue to feed a timber and charcoal demand in local markets. Fuelwood demand will increase as more households are not able to afford LPG and electricity to cook food. Bakeries and local ihaw-ihaw stalls will need good charcoal from mangrove wood.

Threatened and endangered species will still be threatened and endangered if the market for wildlife is not stopped and if poor families who live with these endangered species have nothing else to eat.

Small-scale and large-scale metallic mineral applications, exploration permits, development and operation plans will continue to be accepted and processed, with environmental and social compliance documents required -- sometimes genuine, sometimes token. Mercury will still be traded and bought in Diwalwal and Aroroy so that small-scale miners can separate a gram of gold from 25 kilos of ore. Quarrying permits in hills and riverbeds will provoke local government and local business conflicts. Oil, gas, and coal mining is both encouraged and discouraged, with clean and renewable energy technology as a desired national goal.

Marine areas with their corals and seagrass beds will be subjected to bleaching due to El Nino. Marine protected areas with community support might hold out for a time against illegal fishing. Dynamite fishing will still blast schools of anchovies and elbows and arms. Cyanide will continue to stun red emperor grouper, to be revived three hours later after a brief plane ride from Northern Palawan, in a Hong Kong restaurant as live fish. Sweet and sour.

The International Conservation Caucus Foundation with the Global Environmental Facility conferred the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Award on 13 April 2010 to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This is recognition of her "innovative leadership to protect the oceans and preserve the biodiversity of the Coral Triangle."

According to the Conservation International, an international conservation NGO, the Coral Triangle is the global center of marine biodiversity hosting more than 500 coral species, at least 3,000 fish species, the largest mangrove forests found on the planet, and home to more than 150 million people. Unsustainable fishing, pollution, climate change and habitat destruction threaten the Coral Triangle.

This situation led to the Coral Triangle Initiative or CTI, a political commitment to undertake a regional plan of action that will be translated into national action plans. Leaders of the six countries in this region: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Timor Leste, committed to adopt a plan of action during their summit in 2009 in Manado, Indonesia.

President Arroyo signed Executive Order 797 last year mandating the Philippine National Action Plan that follows the general outline of the CTI plan and adopts the guiding principles of the six CTI member-countries.

The CTI is a laudable environmental achievement that is accompanied by political commitment that we hope will be continued and sustained by successive leaders of the six countries. This is well and good for the Coral Triangle and the international support the initiative engenders.