Connection Between Environmental Politics & Elections
The 2025 Mid-term Elections is fast approaching which will just be an exercise in futility if leaders are just elected as usual for the instant pursuit of wealth, fame and power. Many of these candidates are backed-up by big businesses as it is very difficult to win without money as elections in this country, through the years are called “money-politics.” If this will continue, elections will be a waste of time and resources which can be described as “full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” It has become imperative to now effect a paradigm shift to elect the much-needed transformational leaders, never transactional, to effect the much-awaited transformation to liberate the people from the shackle of poverty, gross inequities and social injustice. This is so because despite all the efforts, struggles and sacrifices, social change has been so elusive all these years as the systems and structure breeding poverty are as formidable as ever. The voters’ awakening process should now begin especially on electing officials who should now stand for the cause of the environment which has become urgent and emergency as it has become an issue of survival, not only locally but globally. In other countries like Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands and the European Parliament, people have elected greater numbers of Green parliamentarians.
This is so because in recent months especially in European countries, millions of young people have been protesting in the streets calling for politicians to take action on combating climate change. In those countries now fighting for ecological cause, environmental education has been given top priority as they have become witnesses to the destruction of the ecosystem and dramatic decrease in biodiversity. The realization has dawned upon them that creating awareness is not just sufficient. They are finding ways to implement change with conviction.
As there is now the increasing environmental consciousness on these painful realities that are so alarming that has put humanity now in the brink of extinction, the long-awaited awakening process should now be trailblazed in our country which has been described by the United Nations Food Agricultural Organization (UN-FAO) as the 4th country in the world worst hit by climate change. This truism is Res Ipsa Loquitor (The thing speaks for itself). Tens of thousands have already perished out of environmental catastrophe that had continuously hit our country, not to mention hundreds of thousands families rendered homeless. In the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan alone, some three thousand people died and ten thousand families rendered homeless when Typhoon Sendong hit us on Dec. 17, 2011.
The time has come for us to think globally but to act locally. This should now apply when electing political leaders this coming 2025 Mid-Term Elections. Let it be known to our countrymen that voting has now become not just a political but most importantly, an ethical issue of saving GAIA (Mother Earth). During these most challenging times of choosing who will lead us, our consciousness should touch base with the environment, to reflect and be aware of the present state of the ecosystems and that awareness should propel us to action, thus the adage, “Think Globally, Act Locally.” As predicted by Climate Scientists globally, that in the absence of a major change, the world system will collapse in less than a hundred years due to climate crisis. As we do some reflections, let us examine the present state of the Philippine environment by asking some relevant questions. Why have we allowed the powerful loggers to decimate our 17 million hectares dipterocarp forests to less than a million hectares remaining after just a century of massive illegal logging? Don’t you know that in just one shipment of logs, a logger would earn some 360 million pesos and that gargantuan amount was shared to law enforcers? Many of these loggers had been voted to high positions as Mayors, Governors, Congressmen and even as Senators. But our wealth is not just above the ground, beneath are some 72 kinds of top-quality minerals especially in Mindanao but are being subjected to massive illegal mining operations by Chinese nationals carrying only Tourist Visa in cahoots with powers-that-be. Please voters in Cagayan de Oro WAKE-UP! These illegal miners have been allowed to transport tens of millions worth of Buck-hoes and Bulldozers.
When in 2014, we have arrested 5 Chinese nationals in their Campsite in the upland barangay of Cagayan de Oro when we were implementing the WRIT OF KALIKASAN as ordered by the Court of Appeals in 2013. In their campsite in barangay Tumpagon, we found Shabu, Armalite and AK-47. What puzzled us no end, why were these arrested illegal Chinese miners carrying only Tourist Visa detained only for one week and were released back to China, even accompanied by a Kagawad? Is it true as we got information from reliable sources that many of these top elected officials are involved in illegal mining activities including Barangay Officials? If these foreign miners could bring in tens of million-pesos worth of equipment, is it true that these illegal miners are earning not only millions but billons of pesos, to the detriment of those who perished out of environment catastrophe? Indeed, these illegal miners have wrought so much havoc to our ecosystems, perishing out our mountains and eliminating mini-forests and agricultural land in the uplands of Cagayan de Oro, and Iligan through hydraulic mining operations, even destroying hundreds of hectares of irrigated lands and massive siltation to the detriment of our coastal communities now living in hunger and extreme poverty. NOW VOTERS, PLEASE DECIDE, WILL YOU STILL VOTE FOR THESE POLITICANS.
After the massive destruction to our ecosystems through massive illegal logging and illegal mining, the reason why we have lost paradise, transforming the once-upon-time “Eden” into hell, the Filipinos are still so ecologically apathetic, buried in the fallacies of life and politics. Why are these transactional leaders being voted upon? So much damage is now happening to our agricultural land resulting to hunger and poverty especially to our Indigenous Peoples. Let us now reflect on what’s happening to our millions of hectares of agricultural land.
Well, foreign agricultural companies operating hundreds of thousands of hectares of vast plantations on top of the eight sub-watersheds in Bukidnon which comprise the Cagayan de Oro watersheds are heavily using toxic chemicals as fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides to mass produce fruits not for us but for the obese people in advanced countries to earn millions of dollars, while we cannot even produce basic staples like rice and milk for our hungry people. Don’t you know that our country is the biggest rice importer in the world and that 95% of our milk is imported? This is the reason why 85% of the Filipino children are malnourished, based on the data of the Food and Nutrition Institute.
What is so puzzling and painful is the massive application of toxic chemicals by these corporations, some of which are even already banned abroad. These chemicals have already contaminated our water tables, the reason why many are now afflicted with cancer and many babies born deformed. But nothing is being done about this painful truism as apparently. many of these corporations are in collusion with these leaders. When Cooperative leaders in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica had known that we allowed these corporations to enter Mindanao, they asked, “Why did you allow them to eliminate your agricultural lands and food security? In these countries, people would conduct protest rallies in the streets every time these corporations would attempt to transform their agricultural land into massive plantation. This truism can be googled in U-TUBE. Glaringly, political leaders are the protectors of these corporations as they are for big business. Let us now wake-up or forever the Filipinos will be forever consigned to hunger and poverty!
INDEED, VOTING IS NOT JUST A POLITICAL BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, AN ETHICAL ISSUE, MEANING, ARE YOU FOR GOD OR FOR EGOIC EVIL THAT HAS BURIED FILIPINOS IN COLLECTIVE INSANITY? WE NEED NOW COMPASSIONATE POLITICAL LEADERS WHO WILL BE FOR GAIA AND NEVER FOR WEALTH AND POWER! SO, DEAR FILIPINO VOTERS, DEBUNK THE EGO, GO TO THE SUBLIME FOR A BETTER LIFE FOR OUR PEOPLE. HUWAG NA PO TAYONG PALOKO! GISING NA PO TAYO AT PILIIN MGA KANDITATO NA MAY MALASAKIT SA SAMBAYANAN AT SA KALIKASAN! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH OF MONEY POLITICS WHICH CAN BE LIKENED TO A “BIG CIRCUS” AS THE OUTPOURINGS OF MONEY BY THESE POLITICIANS CAN EASILY BE RECOVERED WHEN THEY REGAIN BACK POLITICAL POWER, LIKE VOLTURES SUCKING THE NATION DRY OF RESOURCES. INDEED, IN A REPUBLICCAN AND DEMOCRATIC STATE, SOVEREIGNTY RESIDES WITH THE PEOPLE AND ALL GOVERNMENTAL POWERS EMANATE FROM THEM. EXERCISE THAT SOVEREIGN POWER RESPONSIBLY AND VOTE WISELY OTHERWISE THE DESCRIPTION OF AWAKENED PEOPLE IN THE ABOVE-MENTIONED COUNTRIES WOULD BE PROVEN CORRECT WHEN THEY SAID THAT, “THE PHILIPPINES IS A NATION OF STUPID AND COWARD PEOPLE!” LET US SERVE NOTICE TO ONE AND ALL THAT THE PHILIPPINES IS THE LAND OF THE BRAVE AND THE FREE WITH HIGH ETHICAL STANDARD!
