http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/d...041205opi3.html

By Marlen V. Ronquillo

Life to our forests

Some political leaders had hitched their stars to environmental issues—all with tragic results. Who can remember the passion that attended the debates between Senators Heherson Alvarez and Orlando Mercado over what should be the thrust of the government’s logging policy in the Eighth Congress? Mercado was for a 25-year total ban on logging. Alvarez said this won’t work and batted instead for a selective ban. Plus, the application of the concept of “sustainable development” in areas where logging was still a viable business. Alvarez, from the premier logging province of Isabela, was tagged as a coddler of big-time logging interests. Mercado, a big-city boy, was hailed as the champion of environmental causes.

But where are they now? Voters in 2004 preferred Bong Revilla and Lito Lapid to Mercado, who has a PhD in public policy, and the Harvard-trained Alvarez.

The international press still views former US Vice President Al Gore in the same light—the environmental warrior who lost the Electoral College vote in 2000 because American voters failed to relate to Gore’s environmental crusades (based on the popular vote count, Gore won over George W. in 2000 by a few hundred thousand votes). It was too late for Gore to realize that First- and Third-World countries alike do not care much about the environment, although man’s greed and environmental folly over the past few decades had killed more people on Planet Earth than the two world wars. And the laughter of human lives continues.

Just after the victory of Bush over Kerry, the people on top of the administration’s environmental policies are now saying that giving free rein to oil drilling, logging, mining and related interests was the sense of the American voters. Maybe they are right.

To further dramatize the marginal status of the environment in Philippine politics, take note of this sad fact: Not a single environmentalist has been elected as party-list representative, which only requires roughly 300,000 votes for every House seat. The electric cooperatives can elect three representatives, the maximum for every party-lit group, without breaking a sweat.

In a sense, the lack of clout and sting of environmental issues and environmental organizations in Philippine politics is a blessing. Good policies can be put in place without worry of a major political backlash. What is necessary can be done, without worry of losing a sizable number of votes in the next election.

And, specifically, what should be done?

Since it is quite hard to arrest all past and present loggers and haul them off into gas chambers, it is a must for government to adopt a total logging ban for at least 15 years. Five years is too short, 25 years will just lead to a total atrophy of the country’s forestry resources. Fifteen years is enough to carry out a massive reforestation program in the major mountain ranges, starting with the Sierra Madre. Fifteen years is enough to reforest and make an assessment after that period. Just to probe whether forestry can be a viable business again.

The forestry regional directors, PENRO’s (provincial environment and natural resource officers) and CENRO’s (community environmental and natural resources officers) in logging areas across the country should be investigated—and jailed for life if found guilty of aiding and abetting environmental destruction. Forestry officers have gotten to fat and too corrupt. They have been coddling illegal loggers, if they are not engaged in that racket themselves. They should also be dismissed from office and stripped off all their benefit and retirement privileges.

The World Bank and the Asian Development should push the Philippine government into making a full audit of the reforestation loans and grants that the two multilateral institutions had granted to the country—mostly made during the “green craze” of lending and aid institutions. The span and the breadth of the entire Eat Bulaga-crazy areas would have been adequately reforested with the loans and grants from the WB and ADB. But something intervened, before the WB and the ADB got their money’s worth for reforestation money. The intervention was made by the most despised creatures on Planet Earth—politicians.

The politicians can always follow the money trail. After the ADB and the WB granted loans and grants for reforestation, the politicians went to work. They formed fake nongovernmental organizations and people’s organizations that got the bulk of the reforestation contracts. The phony NGOs and the POs were mostly registered under the names of the politicians’ gofers, mistresses, drivers and handymen. Or names randomly selected from the cemeteries. In due time, the reforestation money, granted amid the loftiest of rhetoric, was mostly in the pockets of the most despised creatures on Planet Earth.

A marginal issue to voters, the environment is right now the country’s most serious policy concern. Let us start by giving life and sustainable growth to our forests.