Tag Archives: environment

komentaryo

The Propaganda War: The case of Nayong Pilipino and the mega-vax center

It seemed, oddly enough, just another battle between big business and government, and a cultural and heritage institution that has the last of the few remaining green spaces in the metro. We’ve seen many of these throughout Duterte’s leadership, and often enough these stories die down quickly and the next thing we know big business has destroyed biodiversity and risked the lives of communities in the name of say, an unnecessary monstrosity of an airport in the middle of Bulacan (hello San Miguel Aerotropolis).

But this one wasn’t going to go away because unlike all the other stories, there was pushback of the government office concerned. And it is this kind of pushback that we haven’t had the past five years, when even the grapevine has been shut down, just like mainstream media.

And with elections so close and so many projects getting railroaded, it’s important to look at instances like this one and realize how the propaganda war is being waged by Duterte allies in big business in exactly the same way that government has waged it. The same strategies of soundbites and bullying, confusion and distraction, containment and damage control. All dependent on mainstream media complicity, of course, and a majority’s decision to not ask the difficult questions, or evade the parts that might actually give us answers.

After all, it only takes the next trending issue to erase this from our semi-conscious state, which makes it easy for projects to be railroaded. The next thing we know Duterte has unilaterally approved the project and threatened anyone who gets in its way.

(more…)

komentaryo

What mining lobby?

Note: After the President said “lobby money talks” given the CA’s denial of Gina Lopez’s confirmation as DENR Secretary, Malacañang clarified: “when he said lobby, it’s not necessarily (about) money.”

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It is hilarious hearing members of the Commission on Appointments (CA) trying to defend themselves against reports that there was a meeting between members of Congress and mining company Citinickel the night before the decision was made to deny the confirmation of DENR Secretary Gina Lopez.

First on the list of adamant denials: San Juan’s Ronaldo Zamora. As if he’d need to be spoken to by any mining company at all. (more…)

komentaryo

Mines are ours

It is difficult to stay calm when you’re watching the Commission on Appointments proceedings for the confirmation of Gina Lopez as Environment Secretary. It doesn’t help that at the center of it all, the Chairman of the Committee for the Environment is Manny Pacquiao who, without a script, reveals himself as utterly incompetent and totally lost — he can’t even keep up with the concept itself of what the DENR does, the laws that it protects and moves within, the fact that these mines were are talking about actually have a history of violence against the community and of environmental degradation.

Ah, but Pacquiao has the Bible, from which he quotes: “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land <…> a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”

So therefore daw, mining is okay.  (more…)

komentaryo

The party’s over

On Valentine’s Day, Secretary Gina Lopez of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) announced that her department was cancelling 75 MPSAs or Mineral Production Sharing Agreements with mining companies. Many of these projects are only in the exploration stage. The cancellation of MPSAs will not mean the loss of jobs.

But of course the mining companies, the Chamber of Mines of the Philippines (COMP), and pro-mining advocates will not take this sitting down. (more…)

komentaryo

Zambales mines: A history of questionable practices

Between the pro-mining students protesting at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) officials, and the insistence that we talk only about the jobs to be lost and the stock market crash, it is clear that we are being distracted from the more important questions about whether or not the mining projects the DENR has ordered closed have in fact been bad for the environment and our communities.

For some of these mines, there is already enough proof and data, enough studies through the years, enough protests, that prove how these have adversely affected the environment and the communities that are in close proximity to the mines.

Case in point: Zambales. (more…)