A Worthy Advocacy to Champion

A WORTHY ADVOCACY TO CHAMPION

by Antonio C. Antonio

August 29, 2014

If you will be a champion in an environmental advocacy, what or which environmental issue would you like to work on? What approach will you use? Explain the global significance of your advocacy.

If I were to choose an environmental advocacy, I would choose “Participatory Public Policy Review in the Philippine Uplands” to promote environmentalism and social justice.

Among the approaches identified by Tearfund, I am inclined to prefer Column No. 2 (Mixture of NGOs, professionals and local community).  Column No. 3 (Local people/groups) is seemingly a miniscule group that may not be able to influence public policies while Column No. 1 (NGOs, trade unions, political representatives, professionals, etc.) is a “too-broad” group that will be very hard to handle.  Besides, the presence of politicians (who represent a “dole out” regime/dispensation) and unions (normally militant and self-indulging) may be a bad combination and a failure waiting to happen.  The more important goals would be (1) to encourage participation among the stakeholders, (2) to hasten decision-making processes, (3) to review and revise inconsistent and non-applicable public policies, (4) to encourage a sustainable advocacy among the stakeholders, (5) to attract outside intervention, assistance and support, (6) to get the stakeholders involved in problem identification and strategy formulation, and (7) to increase the knowledge and awareness of the stakeholders on specific issues that affect them.  These objectives are attainable using a “mixture of NGOs, professionals and local community”.  The prospect of NGOs controlling and setting the agenda will be more acceptable than politicians or government agencies dominating this “mix” of advocacy development participants.

To review what is actually happening at present and to understand the peculiarities of the Philippine uplands, please allow me to reprint a portion of an article I wrote before:

“The normal practice in upland governance is to organize “multi-sectoral taskforces/committees” to deliberate, implement and monitor programs and projects and (oftentimes) bestow upon them extra-ordinary police, administrative and controlling powers.  These taskforces/committees are usually composed of the following:

·         DENR representatives from the National, Regional, Provincial and Community Offices;

·         Local Government Unit (LGU) representatives from the Provincial and Municipal Governments;

·         People’s Organizations (PO) representative (more often) coming from the Indigenous People’s organization/community (IPs) in the affected areas;

·         Civil Society representatives (more often) coming from the environment advocacy groups; and,

·         The private proponents or investors.

This sort of power is very dangerous in the hands of people to know less of what is expected of them.  Please consider the following possible scenario:

·         The DENR representatives, perceived to be corrupt, will often leave glitches in the system to create opportunities for corruption;

·         The LGU representatives are politicians, are easily swayed by populist considerations and could have been elected because of popularity… not knowhow, skill and intelligence;

·         The IP representatives are just there for a ride and would not really know what’s going on;

·         The Civil Society/environmentalist organization representatives are often inflexible and would always take a very militant stance… the “basta” attitude.  They are often quoted as saying: “Basta!  We object!”… and when asked to lay the basis for their objections, they will simply repeat their rehearsed refrain: “Basta! We object!”

·         The private sector representatives, also representing business interest, will always want to put one over the others.

All these characters put together is a perfect formula for disaster.  And the cost for such failure and incompetence would translate to certain and sometimes irreversible and irreparable damage to the environment.” (“Actors in Upland Governance”, July 4, 2013, http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/search?q=actors+in+upland+governance)

As part of the recommendation, I also made this comment: “Acts of graft and corruption are born out of ignorance… it will be hard for people to wheel and deal when others are in the know.  Academicians could create this awareness among the actors and motivate them to properly set up to the challenges ahead.” (Antonio, 2013)  Having said this, I believe the inclusion of the academe in the group in Column No. 2 will be a wise and ideal addition.

I believe that our environment-related ills are directly related to the many confusing public policies we have at present.  As a democracy, we are governed by laws but such laws should translate to the betterment of lives (social justice… meaning: justice in terms of the equitable distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society) and the protection of the world we live in.  Our socio-economic-political malaise is anchored on our contemptuous and twisted view of social justice.  This likewise influences the manner by which we treat our environment.

Examples of conflicting Philippine laws in the upland are Executive Order Nos. 23 and 79.  Please find time to read: “Conflicting Public Policies”, September 20, 2013, (http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/search?q=conflicting+public+policies).

A comprehensive review of public policies will and should result to:

1.     The weeding out of out-dated and non-applicable laws especially those that were promulgated prior to the 1987 Constitution directly concerning natural resources (Philippine Constitution, Article XII, Section 2);

2.     The identification of repetitive, overlapping and conflicting laws and harmonizing the same within the lines of social justice and environmentalism;

3.     The rationalization (meaning: organizing something into a logically coherent system) of upland-based industries to prevent illegal extracting activities;

4.     The sustainable (meaning: the present generation’s utilization of natural resources while leaving the same utilization capability for future generations) utilization of resources; and,

5.     The institutionalization of environmental advocacies as a more structured system and measure to (a) increase knowledge and awareness on environmental matters and concerns, (b) promote participatory management in the uplands, (c) safeguarding our natural resources; and, (d) promoting social justice.

I also believe there are enough renewable natural resources for everyone to sustainably utilize and there are ways to ensure that these resources are also made available for the utilization of future generations.  Our primordial concern is for the non-utilization of non-renewable resources and the sustainable utilization of renewable resources.  Crafting the right and ideal laws to protect both man and his environment should be everybody’s end in mind.  With this, we could be an environment and social justice-focused democracy the world could look up to.  To me, this is a worthy advocacy to champion.

Just my little thoughts…

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