INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S WATCH

IP Group Scores DENR for Favoring Loggers                            

Deforestation and environmental destruction caused by colonizers and their monopoly firms 

A militant indigenous people’s group hit the Macapagal-Arroyo government for refusing to cancel the permits of logging firms especially in calamity areas, charging it favors logging firms over their right to protect and utilize their resources.

BY AT BENGWAYAN

Northern Dispatch

Bulatlat

BAGUIO CITY — Referring to the Dec. 6 pronouncements of Sec. Mike Defensor of the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the militant Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) criticized the department for refusing to the heed calls of the general public to cancel the permits of logging firms, especially in areas hit by recent calamities such as Aurora and Quezon provinces. 

“We condemn such pronouncements by the DENR. It only shows that the government is protecting logging concessions,” said Joan Carling, CPA chairperson.

Carling added that while the government protects logging firms, it denies indigenous peoples of their right to protect and utilize their resources.

 “We recognize indigenous peoples’ inherent right to their resources. They have long used forest resources, and they only get what they need and even replace these,” Carling said.

Carling cited the case of a Kankanaey from Besao, Mt. Province who was arrested in 1999 by authorities for cutting down a tree in his tribe’s own communal forest. 

CPA said that logging is most rampant in Kalinga province. DENR Cordillera data shows that a Timber License Agreement (TLA) in the province has been issued to Furniture Group, Inc. An Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) was also issued in Luna, Apayao province, to a company  called Stervegneer.

Renato Pacis of the DENR Cordillera office said that a Socialized Industrial Forest Management Agreement (SIFMA) has been applied for in Ifugao, but has already been converted into a Community-Based Forest Management Agreement (CBFMA).

The IFMA, SIFMA, and CBFMA are stipulated under Section 2.17 of the DENR’s Rules and Regulations Governing the Special Uses of Forestlands for Tourism Purposes. Other categories in the same section are Timber License Agreement (TLA), Forestland Grazing Management Agreement (FGMA), Forestland Management Agreement (FLMA), Community Forest Management Agreement (CFMA), Community Forest Stewardship Agreement (CFSA), and Communal Forest (CF).

Empty promises

While the Arroyo administration said it will curb logging operations in the country, Carling said there is simply “no teeth” in these pronouncements. She said, “It only takes political will to go after these criminals.”

“There are even loggers in the halls of Congress. They will not give it up easily because they earn huge profits from logging operations,” she added.

In a separate interview, CPA secretary-general Windel Bolinget said that the government’s efforts at saving the remaining forests would not mean much especially with its efforts to revitalize the mining industry.

“Mining requires timber for its production, and the Supreme Court just reversed its decision by declaring the legality of Financial or Technical Assistance Agreements entered into by the government under the Mining Act of 1995,” he pointed out.

What’s gone is gone

Bolinget added that even if government finally pins down those liable, the damages to people’s lives and livelihood are irreparable.

“Kahit na maparusahan sila, hindi na nila maibabalik ang kabuhayan at ari-arian ng mga nasalanta, kasama na riyan ang social at psychological trauma (Even if the government punishes those responsible for the calamities, it will not be able to bring back the lives, livelihood, and properties of the victims, not to mention the social and psychological trauma they went through)”, he said.

Bolinget said that the government is to blame since it protects loggers, both local and foreign.

Deforestation and environmental destruction

An emailed document from the International Department of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) states that deforestation peaked under Spanish colonization, accelerating during the American occupation. By the 1950’s, 200,000 trees were cut per year and 30% of Philippine rivers, dead. Logs were predominantly exported to Japan, a time when it was at its “rapid economic construction and subsequent booms.”

A paper by Dr. Perry Ong of the University of the Philippines (State of Philippine Biodiversity: Changing Mindscapes Amidst the Crisis) revealed that for the last 500 years, the country’s land area decreased by 13.2 million hectares due to environmental destruction.

Ong criticized the World Bank for neither eradicating nor alleviating poverty.  He claimed that the programs pushed by the World Bank even led to the wholesale destruction of the country’s resources.  

During the recent Water for the People Convention in Benguet, it was reported that 50 out of 421 Philippine rivers are polluted, due mainly to toxic materials. Forty rivers were reported biologically dead.

 “In the 1960’s, US and Japanese monopoly firms expanded the mines and plantations without considering the ecological balance and social costs,” the CPP document read.

The paper affirmed the revolutionary movement’s stance on the issue of environment and ecology, stating that it “has carried out the most vigorous struggles against policies and actions inciting plunder and destruction of human and natural resources in the country.”

Examples struggles cited by the paper included that conducted against the World Bank-funded Chico River Dam  and Cellophil projects both in the Cordilleras, the Bataan nuclear power plant, and recently, the fight for a 25-year complete ban on logging for export, allowing limited logging for domestic use.

“The revolutionary forces just don’t talk on the issue of ecology, it takes decisive actions,” the document read. The paper was first released in 1995, during the Ramos administration. Northern Dispatch/Posted by Bulatlat

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