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By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Environmentalists and Palawan leaders praise Dr. Gerry Ortega’s contribution to efforts to protect the environment and help the poor and marginalized.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Lawyer says Co’s family was not a party to the DOJ-NBI panel investigation and that they did not have access to all the evidence the panel had. Neither did they get the opportunity to controvert the claims of the military denying responsibility for the killing.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Ortega is a known radio broadcaster and a pro-environment advocate. He has worked with various environmental groups and associations on pro-environment and community-based projects. He gained local popularity as a wildlife veterinarian and became known as "Doc Gerry."
Only 20 percent of the country’s original forest cover remains, making the Philippines the only country in Southeast Asia with the thinnest forest cover. An environmental group in Aurora foresees that all forest cover will be gone by the end of this decade (or 2010) if logging operations continue at their present pace.
Despite his seemingly firm stance, however, Aquino made the admission that a log ban could not be enforced immediately. He said that the Department of Environment and National Resources (DENR) and logging firms should first come to an agreement. He added that the EO would also affect and small-time saw mills.
Abuses by mining companies are not new in the Philippines. Destructive mining have, for decades and in tandem with wanton logging and the equally destructive building of dams, destroyed and poisoned whole communities. Mining companies have been shortchanging these communities. Worse, these firms have been using the police, the military and paramilitary units as their security guards, leading to human-rights abuses such as those suffered by the Ifugaos in Nueva Vizcaya.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
“The DOJ panel totally ignored the testimony of the witnesses that attest to the culpability of the military on the death of the Kananga 3”, said Dr. Giovanni Tapang, chairperson of AGHAM and convenor of the Justice for Leonard Co Movement.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
“How can these officials and businessmen put the health and very lives of our children at risk? They are also destroying the environment in the name of profit.” – Fr. Anacleto Ignacio, parish priest of San Jose del Monte city.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
“Companies like OceanaGold that violate human rights and destroy the environment have no reason to stay and should not be allowed to operate in our country...” – Clemente G. Bautista Jr., national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE.
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
The Aquino government, during its first six months in office, does not provide any indication that it is serious in addressing the problem of degradation of the environment and in mitigating the effects of climate change because it is leaning toward failed market-based solutions.
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
A typical coal power plant generates an average of 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide... 500 tons of small airborne particles...720 tons of carbon monoxide... 225 pounds of arsenic... and 114 pounds of lead, four pounds of cadmium, other toxic heavy metals, and trace amounts of uranium which are all poisonous and carcinogenic.
Some 23 families were evacuated from their homes at City Camp Lagoon Monday morning, as floodwaters begin to rise at the city's lowest part. Evacuees, numbering to at least 100 individuals, are staying in Aguinaldo Elementary School in Barangay QM. However, some residents in Little Kibungan in La Trinidad, Benguet, refuse to leave their homes, despite being declared as a hazardous area by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau of the DENR.
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
The results of two environmental investigative missions belie the declaration of President Benigno Aquino III that local communities would decide whether to allow mining operations in their area or not. In South Cotabato, Aquino was reported to have mediated to reverse the decision of the local government disallowing mining in their jurisdiction.
After Ondoy: The Road to Recovery
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