The discussions in Congress and in the media about the degradation of Boracay Island would doubtless have brought enormous disappointment and frustration to those who, perceiving the intensifying pressure on this country’s natural environment, worked hard for the creation of a Cabinet department devoted exclusively to environmental management and protection. The discussions have shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that the folks at the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) have been sleeping on the job – again.
I say ‘again’ because this is not the first time that the DENR folk have been merely reacting – forced to react would be more accurate – to a bad environmental situation in this country. They seem to keep forgetting that the DENR was created not to clean up environmental messes after their occurrence but to prevent their happening in the first place. Over the years of DENR’s existence it has been one cleaning-up operations after another.
It was hoped by DENR’s supporters that the first beneficiary of the new agency’s purposeful operations would be the nation’s diminishing forest cover, which had been systematically raped by politically powerful illegal loggers. Their hopes were dashed: the remaining forests became the first victims of DENR’s substandard performance. In the nation’s illegal-logging hot spots – Cagayan Valley, the Bicol Region, Eastern Mindanao and Eastern Visayas – denudation activity of illegal loggers have continued, even in places as close to Metro Manila as Rizal and Aurora. In recent times the most dramatic indication of the continued widespread incidence of illegal logging was the cascade of logs down from the mountains above Cagayan de Oro City as a result of Typhoon Pablo’s torrential rains.
A second victim of DENR’s substandard performance has been – does it need saying? – the Philippine mining industry. The celebrated Marcopper Mining Corporation episode and other mining-industry pollution disasters are indications of DENR’s abject failure to adequately supervise one of this country’s oldest and proudest industries. Had DENR done a creditable job of supervising the mining industry, former DENR head Gina Lopez would have had no basis for saying that there was no such thing as responsible mining.
Now has come the Boracay mess.
There can be little doubt that the local government units (LGUs) involved – the Regional Development Council for Region VI, the provincial government of Aklan, the government of the municipality of Malay and the councils of the three Malay barangays – are hugely responsible for the progressive deterioration of arguably the No. 2 (after Metro Manila) tourist attraction in this country. All the imaginable violations of law and regulations – no business permits, no environmental clearances, no health and sewerage certificates, failure to observe road setbacks and shoreline distances and excessive commercial establishments would not have been possible if the concerned LGUs had discharged their legal and administrative responsibilities. Governors, mayors and sanggunian members cannot be expected to always do their jobs because they have personal interests – their political supporters, their private businesses and their families – to protect. This is where DENR is supposed to come in.
DENR is expected to do the examination, inspection, monitoring and supervision jobs that the LGUs should be but are not doing. If DENR personnel did more inspection and monitoring, instead of sitting on their backsides, in their offices, making plans and drawing up regulations, our forests, mines, waters and air would not be in the dire situations that they often are.
DENR has again and again been caught sleeping on the job. What to do with this department? Scrap it? No, DENR is now too important a department to be scrapped. Just shake it up vigorously and give the DENR personnel more stringent and more measurable assignments.