ISO 14000

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

ISO 14000. Whatever that means. To Secretary Paje of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) it means, “This milestone is consistent with our mandate on sustainable development and environmental governance, and demonstrates the commitment of each employee of the DENR to be a role model in environmental management.” The official website of the agency posted, “The central office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Visayas Avenue in Quezon City has become greener, after receiving the latest edition of the ISO 14000 series of environmental management system (EMS) standards.”

The acceptance of the award took place during the First Philippine Environmental Summit held February 9-11, 2016 at the SMX Convention Center, a facility of ShoeMart, a supermarket known to have cut centuries-old pine trees in Baguio City to make way for the expansion of its facilities.

The summit with the theme, “Greening Together, Growing Better”, was aimed to celebrate and showcase environmental gains, but the design of the conference heavily focused on government initiatives and limited the participation of environmentalists in the workshops, which ideally, should have been conducted among interest groups months before the summit took place, to facilitate common goals, strategies and targets between government and NGOs and bind the environment sector with concrete agreements and partnership initiatives in the communities.

DENR’s mandate is very clear, but depending on the depth of one’s environmental commitment, the direction of one’s political and religious affiliations, and the level of greed, the means to achieve sustainable development and environmental governance can mean, the deforestation of virgin forests to make way for palm oil plantations, the clearing of century-old trees to widen roads and to build commercial and housing projects, or the unabated granting of mining and logging permits in forests whose operations surreptitiously encroach on the ancestral lands of indigenous communities.

The control of forests and ancestral lands continues to this very day, appearing as rebel-propelled, but at the bottom of deforestation is profit. It is the driving force for the killing of the Lumads, an indigenous group in the Philippines whose vast ancestral lands with lush forest covers are now being lusted on by profiteers. The killing has not stopped.

Several concerned groups aired their concerns, in fact, it was reduced to just one basic request, to allow an NGO representative to speak in behalf of environmental groups for as much time as the government official was allowed to expound on the breakthroughs and innovations of DENR.

Among those who signed the “Open Letter to the Green Convergence Board and its Environment Summit Program Committee” were: Rev. Carlito J. Cenzon, CICM, D.D. (Bishop of Baguio), Rev. Broderick S. Pabillo, D.D. (Auxiliary Bishop of Manila), Lourdes V. Arsenio (Coordinator Archdiocese of Manila Ministry of Ecology), Esther Pacheco, President (Concerned Citizens Advocating Philippine Environmental Sustainability), Greg Bituin, Jr., Editor (Diwang Lunti), Antonio Claparols, President (Ecological Society of the Philippines);

Minerva Gonzales, Chair (Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights- Asia), Patria Gwen M.L. Borcena, M.A., Acting Executive Director and Atty. Galahad PeBenito, Environmental Legal Counsel (Greenresearch), Julia D. Senga, Co-Chairperson, Committee on Culture and Environment (International Visitor Leadership Program-Philippines), Fr. Robert Reyes, OFM, Lead Co-Convenor (National Coalition to Save the Trees), and Virginia J. Pasalo, Program Director, Women, Ecology and Economic Development Program (Women in Development Foundation).

The summit betrays its own theme. It takes at least two sides to summit. It takes more to celebrate it. Denying a critical mass of environmentalists for just a statement is like a man delivering a penile monologue, achieving a climax entirely on his own, expecting his partner to express gratitude.

 

SALAMAT ED SIKA

Salamat sirin, ari na kaliber-liber

Anengneng ko met kalamor

su ma-asnan insekder mo

tan maples ya inkebet mo

anggano intilak moý liket kon

akabitin ed diking na kama

 

THANKS TO YOU

Thank you, master of the environment

At least I saw how you stood up, proudly

and how you shrunk, so quickly

even if you left my happiness hanging

on the edge of the bed

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

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