Group jeers DENR's one-strike policy

Delfin Mallari Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer

LUCENA CITY, Philippines—The announcement by Environment Secretary Joselito Atienza of his "one-strike policy" of dismissing erring regional officials was met with sarcasm by environmentalist groups.
"That's blatant propaganda. It's an empty threat. Nothing will come out of it," Fr. Pete Montallana, chair of Task Force Sierra Madre, a Church-based forest watchdog, said in a phone interview Friday.
Joey Papa, president of environmentalist group Bangon Kalikasan Movement said Atienza's warning was the "usual PR stunt."
"It's Atienza who's calling the shots, not the regional directors. Malacañang should reshuffle Atienza himself," he said in an email statement to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
For a regional official of Tanggol Kalikasan, a public interest environmental law office, Atienza's new policy if seriously implemented will wipe out all regional heads of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources across the country.
"Illegal logging is prevalent in all parts of the country, from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. If the good Secretary is serious in implementing his new policy, only the regional head of the DENR in the National Capital region will remain because there is no forest to rape in Metro Manila," said environmentalist lawyer Shiela de Leon, TK-Southern Tagalog executive director, in a separate telephone interview.
On Thursday, Atienza announced his "one-strike policy" which he said would lead to the immediate removal of regional officials in areas where illegal logging and other environmental crimes are confirmed to exist.
Atienza announced the policy amid the reported resurgence of illegal logging in Sierra Madre as a result of connivance between corrupt DENR men and illegal loggers.
Montallana alleged that corruption in the DENR has been "perfected" by unscrupulous officials and employees.
"There's a well-entrenched syndicate in every layer of DENR offices. We have submitted evidence of the shenanigans of corrupt DENR men several times but nothing happened. There's one incident in which an investigation we initiated was almost finished then suddenly the probe was stopped for no reason at all," he said.
"Corruption is endemic in the DENR. Getting rid of its corrupt personnel is a long shot. I wish him (Atienza) good luck," the priest said.
De Leon said Atienza should initiate an internal clean up of his department. "The DENR on its own if it's really sincere can identify the gang of corrupt personnel in the house," she said.
"We agree with the secretary that illegal logging cannot happen if not known by field personnel. There is a real need to clean the department of erring personnel," she said.
But for Papa, the commission of environmental crimes in the country has never been stopped and no amount of reshuffling in the DENR could solve or prevent it.
Papa said that after former Environment secretary Angelo Reyes suspended the marble mining operations in Biaknabato, Bulacan, water from inside a cave came back after years of drought for farmers and their households in nearby villages whose rivers and wells were fed by the spring waters.
"When operations resumed, blasting of the mountain has caused the water to recede again, the mountain itself and the caves underneath to be destroyed, and the residents to suffer again the noise, pollution, and tension, compounded by the continuing movement of trucks hauling the marble slabs which has also destroyed the roads," he lamented.
Noting the shortage of DENR resources to effectively fulfill its task to protect the environment, De Leon urged the government and the private sector to pool their resources and efforts together to address the situation.
"Our field experience shows this can be effective," she said.

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