8. The eco-tourism project in Taal Lake, Batangas.
Proponents of the project want to develop the lake into a major tourist destination in Southern Tagalog region under the Metro Taal Development Project. More than 30,000 residents, mostly lake fishermen will be affected by this public-private partnership project on eco-tourism.
9) The still unresolved Guimaras oil spill which until now is causing large economic, social and moral nightmare among the fisherfolk in the island and nearby island provinces of Negros and Panay Islands. More than 100,000 fishing families are still having a hard time to recover due to toxic sludge.
Special Rapporteur on Food
According to its official website, the Special Rapporteur on food has nine identified priority areas of work, namely agribusiness, agrifood paradigms, climate change, food aid and development cooperation, governance and the global food crisis, intellectual property rights, land rights, national implementation, and trade.
Included in the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on food is to promote the full realization of the right to food and the adoption of measures at the national, regional and international levels for the realization of the right of everyone to adequate food.
The Special Rapporteur is also supposed to champion the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger so as to be able fully to develop and maintain their physical and mental capacities.
The Special Rapporteur is also tasked to examine ways and means of overcoming existing and emerging obstacles to the realization of the right to food; submit proposals in line with Millennium Development Goal No. 1 to halve by the year 2015 the proportion of people who suffer from hunger; and to present recommendations on possible steps with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the right to food, including steps to promote the conditions for everyone to be free from hunger.
The office is also supposed to in work in close cooperation with all States, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as with other relevant actors representing the broadest possible range of interests and experiences. The Special Rapporteur reports both to the UN General Assembly and to the Human Rights Council
Disgusted with other UN bodies
Pamalakaya’s Hicap, in the meantime, included criticism in the letter to de Schutter. He said Pamalakaya was “disgusted and disappointed” with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) to whom it originally sent feelers regarding the nine cases.
Hicap said Pamalakaya officials had previously sought an audience with of Rolf Willmann, senior policy officer of on food, agriculture and fishery, regarding the privatization and conversion cases which are inimical to food production and food rights. This was during the Global Conference on Small Scale Fisheries on October 2008 held in Bangkok, Thailand, and during the Food Agricultural Organization (UN-FAO) and its Committee on Fisheries (COFI) regional workshop meeting also in Bangkok, Thailand in October two years later.
“Mr. Willmann turned down our proposal for a FAO probe, saying that the Philippine state may invoke national sovereignty to stop any UN led probe. A FAO senior policy officer, however, told us to refer our cases directly to the UN Human Rights Council particularly to office of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. So this is what we are exploring now,” said Hicap.
“We want President Aquino to stop offering all of the country’s marine resources to the foreign investors and in the process kill the livelihood of thousands of fisherfolk. We hope that Mr. de Schutter will not ignore our call,” he concluded.
