The Environment Vote

Electoral Platform for the Environment

Flora and fauna should not be appropriated by private and foreign corporations through intellectual property conventions such as patents and licenses. Repeal the Philippine Plant Variety Protection Act.

Promote native agricultural varieties and indigenous agricultural practices.

Ban the land-use conversion of agricultural lands and natural ecosystems like mangrove areas.

Promote the conservation of our biodiversity. Enforce the ban on illegal wildlife trade. Stop biopiracy.

Enforce the ban on incinerator plants.

Declare a moratorium on the construction of coal-fired power plants.

Amend the Clean Air Act by instituting mechanisms that will safeguard the livelihood of low-income workers and ban oil companies from passing on the burden of paying for cleaner oil products to consumers.

Repeal the Philippine Water Crisis Act of 1995 that instituted the policy of water privatization.

Stop the construction of large dams.

Rehabilitate and protect watershed areas. Promote community manage forestry.

Immediately rehabilitate biologically dead rivers.

Immediately upgrade, expand and develop a national sewage system.

Promote community manage waste segregation, composting and recycling.

Towards peace based on justice

To stop the collateral damages to the environment, the government must reverse its policy of militarization and support to wars of aggression. The next and succeeding governments should junk unilateral agreements as the Visiting Forces Agreement that continues to pose risks on the people and the environment and the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement that allows the entry of weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear arms into the country. The government should instead pursue the quest for justice of victims of toxic waste contamination at the former US military bases, including the victims of unexploded ordnance left by joint military exercises.

Towards clean governance.

It has often been observed that our country has enough environmental laws; we only need to implement and enforce them. In spite the destruction and pollution that is happening around, there is hardly any environmental case that has been brought to justice. There is a need to finally clean the Department which has been noted to be one of the graft-ridden agencies in the country.

The problem about government corruption can be linked to how easily our natural resources and the national patrimony are bartered away by a leadership that emphasizes foreign exchange earnings over the people s constitutionally guaranteed right for the sole utilization and enjoyment of our natural resources.

As a safeguard measure, all our natural resources should be decreed as inalienable. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources should be reoriented away from brokering business transactions with local and transnational corporations towards genuinely protecting and wisely managing our environment.

These are among our minimum set of goals and demands. For our people and the environment, we vow to pursue them on the coming May elections and beyond.

Members:
Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan (Agham); Center for Environmental Concerns; Haribon Foundation; Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang; Mamamalakaya sa Pilipinas (Pamalakaya); Religious Missionaries of the Philippines; Kalikasan-People s Network for the Environment; Bangon Kalikasan Movement; Tanggol Kalikasan; Philippine Task Force for Bases Clean-Up; Earth Island Institute (EII); Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan sa Pilipinas (KAMP); Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay); Philippine Federation for Environmental Concerns (PFEC); Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE); Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS); Philippine Society for the Protection of Animals