Atty. Gloria Estenzo-Ramos
Last week, the news about an oil find in Aloguinsan, Cebu (Cebu Daily News/Jan. 10) surprised and alarmed not a few citizens who are aware of its serious implications in this climate-challenged millennium.
Oil is a fossil fuel, the burning of which contributes to the already excessive and deadly concentration of carbon in the atmosphere. We have reached 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide for the first time in our planetary history, to the consternation of citizens and scientists alike. Dr. Charles Miller, the researcher specializing in the remote sensing of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and principal investigator, Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) mission, says:
“Current [atmospheric] CO2 values are more than 100 ppm higher than at any time in the last one million years (and maybe higher than any time in the last 25 million years).”
Dr. Miller adds:
“These increases in atmospheric CO2 are causing real, significant changes in the Earth system now, not in some distant future climate, and will continue to be felt for centuries to come. We can study these impacts to better understand the way the Earth will respond to future changes, but unless serious actions are taken immediately, we risk the next threshold being a point of no return in mankind’s unintended global-scale geo-engineering experiment.”
Our country is one of the most vulnerable to the deadly effects of climate change and our people are already reeling from it. We are not lacking in environment and climate change-related laws to address the challenges and for us to move towards the path of sustainable development.
RA 9729, the Climate Change Act of 2009, declares as public policies to “enjoin the participation of national and local governments, businesses, nongovernment organizations, local communities and the public to prevent and reduce the adverse impacts of climate change” and “integrate the concept of climate change in various phases of policy formulation, development plans, poverty-reduction strategies and other development tools and techniques by all agencies and instrumentalities of the government.”
RA 10121, the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010, is clear and specific in expressing as a state policy to “Mainstream disaster risk reduction and climate change in development processes such as policy formulation, socioeconomic development planning, budgeting and governance, particularly in the areas of environment, agriculture, water, energy, health, education, poverty reduction, land-use and urban planning, and public infrastructure and housing.”
The objective is clear: we should transition to a low-carbon future, wean from fossil-fuel dependency as what many countries are doing and build the resiliency of ecosystems and our people.
The problem, as always, is in the Executive Department. The laws are not taken seriously by local government units and the national agencies, and worse, public officials are not held accountable.
For so long , the Department of Energy (DOE) has been allowed full freedom to tap conventional fossil fuel energy even if it means letting go of its clear mandate to use technologies which do not impair the environment and the duty to respect the rights of the people. Instead of mainstreaming promptly the use of clean renewable energy, it allowed the establishment of an unprecedented number of 17 additional coal power plants, and continues with service contracts for oil exploration. The business-as-usual mind-set favoring fossil fuels is a definite threat to our future, aside from contravening the laws and the declared public policies.
DOE, it should be noted, is designated member of the Advisory Board of the Climate Change Commission and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, same with the Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). I wonder if meetings are held for these clearly incoherent, inconsistent and unsustainable energy policies of the Aquino administration to be ironed out.
From the surprise reactions of various stakeholders, we can deduce that perhaps only the officials of Aloguinsan and the DOE and maybe, the DENR, are privy to the activity conducted by the Australian company Gas2Grid which, according to the Aloguinsan Vice Mayor Augustus Moreno started in 2005.
Public consultation is still a challenge in this country of ours, despite laws and jurisprudence requiring the full respect of our right to participate in decision-making and to make informed decisions.
The site is reported to be 8 kilometers from the shores in a municipality which is part of Tañon Strait Protected Seascape (TSPS). Without a duly constituted Protected Area Management Board (PAMB) in TSPS which covers Cebu, Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental, it is rather presumptuous to allow such an activity without the approval of said still nonexistent PAMB, bereft of a management plan at that, in addition to the pressing climate change and environmental concerns.
Hopefully, Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III will soon convene a dialogue among stakeholders in Cebu to address this and many other pressing issues affecting our right to a sustainable future.
The following lines spoken between Forrest Gump and his mother in the unforgettable movie titled after him, reverberate at this moment: Forrest Gump: “What’s my destiny, Mama?”
Mrs. Gump: “You’re gonna have to figure that out for yourself.”
Ultimately, the answer rests with us, the people.
Amidst these trials, do we care enough to fight for our rights and those of the unborn generation?