Small fry
Small fry
Posted 09:40pm (Mla time) Jan 26, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE ANNOYING THING about the exchange between Environment Secretary Michael Defensor and Sen. Jamby Madrigal is that the fundamental connection between forestland use agreements and deforestation has been lost in the din. With Defensor's shooting-from-the-hip ad hominems (unfortunate for, as he has admitted, lack of research) and Madrigal's prompt rebuttal coupled with a call for his resignation, there is nothing much to chew on beyond the question of who between them actually has the bigger penchant for photo ops. (Both officials are highly visible, each obviously aware of the importance of media mileage; both have been known to invite reporters and photographers to join some raid or other that they instigated.)
The attentive observer is left to wonder whether, after the smoke has cleared, it will be proven that the Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force is indeed afraid to "go up" to the big fish (as Madrigal and others suspect), or whether "small fry" Mayor Hernando Avellaneda of General Nakar, Quezon, one of those charged with illegal logging per Defensor's earlier announcement, is indeed a target of political harassment (as Bangon Pilipinas has claimed). Avellaneda has gone on record to call Defensor a "liar." The environment secretary has yet to give the lie to that charge.
Defensor also has to amply demonstrate that Pamalakaya was merely talking through its hat when it said that the task force was turning a blind eye to six big logging corporations supposedly permitted by Malacañang to operate in the provinces of Quezon and Aurora. All he has said by way of rebutting the grave accusation was that members of the militant alliance of fisherfolk were helping illegal loggers take timber out of the forest via the Umiray River-an accusation that the group has both ridiculed and denied.
Blood being thicker than water, it's understandable that Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago would publicly request Madrigal to go easy on her "juvenile" nephew. (Imagine the tongue-lashing that the nemesis of fungus faces must have privately administered on the young man in the course of improving his education in politics, also known as the art of the possible, or even in simple prudence.) But it's unlikely that the discerning public would be as indulgent. The state of the Philippine forest cover as dismal as it is, there is just no room for "exuberant excesses" in whoever holds the environment portfolio. It's not child's play. If Defensor can't address the problem of deforestation even with state resources to back him, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should find him another playground.
Big time
BEFORE DEFENSOR accused her family of maintaining interests in logging and mining, and the thrust and parry between them ensued, Madrigal had asked that the glare of official attention be trained on "big-time loggers," or "the people who hide behind the so-called forestry agreements and other forest land use special permits." These are not the "illegal loggers" against whom the full might of Defensor's task force is ranged; these are the ones armed with such papers as timber license agreements, or industrialized or socialized forest management agreements, and therefore "legally" allowed to operate in Philippine forests.
These are the loggers that Defensor had earlier absolved of responsibility in the landslides and floods that killed more than 1,000 people in Quezon and Aurora, but whose operations the clergy of the Prelature of Infanta (Quezon) had asked to be stopped. "We should no longer allow the irresponsible use of the environment for the self-interest of individuals and the so-called development agenda of the government and some private sectors," Bishops Rolando Tria Tirona and Julio Labayen and 24 priests said in a "statement of conviction" issued early this month. They said "God's clear message for all of us now" was that the Sierra Madre and all other Philippine forests should be protected for the generations to come.
For the past years God's message, as illustrated vividly in the terrible toll exacted on life and property by the decimation of our forests, has been constantly flashing. But it has been for naught, and, like broken Haiti, this country is inexorably washing into the sea.
Now where would reforestation czar Victor Corpus, having officially, inexplicably, beat an early retreat from the fight against illegal loggers, find ground to plant his trees?
Posted 09:40pm (Mla time) Jan 26, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 27, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE ANNOYING THING about the exchange between Environment Secretary Michael Defensor and Sen. Jamby Madrigal is that the fundamental connection between forestland use agreements and deforestation has been lost in the din. With Defensor's shooting-from-the-hip ad hominems (unfortunate for, as he has admitted, lack of research) and Madrigal's prompt rebuttal coupled with a call for his resignation, there is nothing much to chew on beyond the question of who between them actually has the bigger penchant for photo ops. (Both officials are highly visible, each obviously aware of the importance of media mileage; both have been known to invite reporters and photographers to join some raid or other that they instigated.)
The attentive observer is left to wonder whether, after the smoke has cleared, it will be proven that the Anti-Illegal Logging Task Force is indeed afraid to "go up" to the big fish (as Madrigal and others suspect), or whether "small fry" Mayor Hernando Avellaneda of General Nakar, Quezon, one of those charged with illegal logging per Defensor's earlier announcement, is indeed a target of political harassment (as Bangon Pilipinas has claimed). Avellaneda has gone on record to call Defensor a "liar." The environment secretary has yet to give the lie to that charge.
Defensor also has to amply demonstrate that Pamalakaya was merely talking through its hat when it said that the task force was turning a blind eye to six big logging corporations supposedly permitted by Malacañang to operate in the provinces of Quezon and Aurora. All he has said by way of rebutting the grave accusation was that members of the militant alliance of fisherfolk were helping illegal loggers take timber out of the forest via the Umiray River-an accusation that the group has both ridiculed and denied.
Blood being thicker than water, it's understandable that Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago would publicly request Madrigal to go easy on her "juvenile" nephew. (Imagine the tongue-lashing that the nemesis of fungus faces must have privately administered on the young man in the course of improving his education in politics, also known as the art of the possible, or even in simple prudence.) But it's unlikely that the discerning public would be as indulgent. The state of the Philippine forest cover as dismal as it is, there is just no room for "exuberant excesses" in whoever holds the environment portfolio. It's not child's play. If Defensor can't address the problem of deforestation even with state resources to back him, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should find him another playground.
Big time
BEFORE DEFENSOR accused her family of maintaining interests in logging and mining, and the thrust and parry between them ensued, Madrigal had asked that the glare of official attention be trained on "big-time loggers," or "the people who hide behind the so-called forestry agreements and other forest land use special permits." These are not the "illegal loggers" against whom the full might of Defensor's task force is ranged; these are the ones armed with such papers as timber license agreements, or industrialized or socialized forest management agreements, and therefore "legally" allowed to operate in Philippine forests.
These are the loggers that Defensor had earlier absolved of responsibility in the landslides and floods that killed more than 1,000 people in Quezon and Aurora, but whose operations the clergy of the Prelature of Infanta (Quezon) had asked to be stopped. "We should no longer allow the irresponsible use of the environment for the self-interest of individuals and the so-called development agenda of the government and some private sectors," Bishops Rolando Tria Tirona and Julio Labayen and 24 priests said in a "statement of conviction" issued early this month. They said "God's clear message for all of us now" was that the Sierra Madre and all other Philippine forests should be protected for the generations to come.
For the past years God's message, as illustrated vividly in the terrible toll exacted on life and property by the decimation of our forests, has been constantly flashing. But it has been for naught, and, like broken Haiti, this country is inexorably washing into the sea.
Now where would reforestation czar Victor Corpus, having officially, inexplicably, beat an early retreat from the fight against illegal loggers, find ground to plant his trees?
posted by Dante at 6:05 PM
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