Inquirer
MANILA, Philippines—Maria Paz “Ipat” Luna’s 5-year-old son, Alon, screams, “Secondhand smoking kills!” whenever he comes across a person puffing on a cigarette.He also gets to eat in a fast food restaurant only when he is invited to a friend’s birthday party.
Alon’s habits reflect the kind of lifestyle his mother, an environmental lawyer working for Tanggol Kalikasan (Environment Defense) and the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW), wants her family to lead.
Luna strongly believes that people should do something for the environment, whichever way they can.
That’s why apart from defending the environment in a court of law, she also practices what she preaches in her own household.
“The first lesson I try to impose on my son and I think he’s learning, is no wastage,” said the proud mom.
Luna added: “I told him that once he starts playing around with the shampoo, the soap and the water, he’s being wasteful. Those are very valuable resources and it’s hard to return them to the state where they may be useful again.”
The lawyer was forced to enroll Alon in a home school program for environmental reasons, too.
“Every time there was a party in his preschool, I found myself segregating all the trash that his classmates would leave behind. I thought he was learning things which I don’t allow at home,” she explained.
Luna however, admitted, that “after about 20 years of pushing myself how to live in an environmentally friendly way, it’s becoming harder and harder because each and every single decision has an impact on the environment now.”
“I try to make very careful purchases. Shopping for food takes hours because you have to keep considering whether or not what you’re buying is healthy and environment-friendly,” she said.
Thankfully, leading a pro-Mother Earth lifestyle is easier because of her husband, broadcast journalist Howie Severino, to whom she has been married for 13 years.
“I am glad I found a soul mate who is just as concerned about the environment and who doesn’t complain when I insist on using biodegradable soap, no pesticides or toxic chemicals in the house or a slow food diet. In fact, a good deal of the decisions I make about stepping lightly on the earth are arrived at together with him,” she told the Inquirer.
There are only two things Luna said she feels strongly about
—smoking and breast-feeding.
But unlike her son, she doesn’t scream about the harmful effects of smoking whenever somebody in her vicinity lights a cigarette.
“I say it nicely, like ‘I have asthma, can you please do it outside?’ But my son, he really screams. Though it’s true, smoking really kills. Every pack of cigarette is shortened life, probably a drain in the entire health care system which has also an environmental impact like breast-feeding,” Luna explained. “A person who was not breast-fed as a baby is prone to catching diseases,” she said, adding that she breast-fed her son until he was 4.
A volunteer counsel for breast-feeding organizations Children for Breastfeeding and Arugaan, Luna said her family has been boycotting a popular multinational food company because of its record in marketing a breast milk substitute.
These days, Luna, who is also an advocate of the Wildbird Club of the Philippines, spends most of her free time bird watching at the American Cemetery, enjoying the sunset or watching dragon boat racers in Baywalk or just biking around the CCP Complex.
Growing up in Lipa, Batangas, her parents’ hometown, Luna said her strong passion for the environment stemmed from her happy experiences during her younger days.
Little nature girl Ipat on the shores of Taal Lake with her kuya Benjie, now a cardiologist and dive doctor.
“I remember swimming at Taal Lake a lot. We spent many evenings near the lake enjoying the sight of fireflies gathered around the balete tree or walking in the lanzones orchard with my family,” she said.
Now she and Alon have been spending quality time on the same shores.
Ipat initially considered taking up medicine but eventually changed her mind and decided to pursue law after she won in a debate contest when she was a college sophomore.
“I shifted from BS to AB Psychology, then I went to law school at the University of the Philippines,” she said. “But I would still be an advocate of the environment or social justice had I gone into a different profession.”
Luna has worked on a wide range of environmental issues, including law enforcement, protected area management, environmental impact assessment and equitable access to resources.
Among the organizations she has been affiliated with are the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, the Haribon Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources and a consortium called “NGOs for Integrated Protected Areas.”
Among the more well-known cases she has been involved in was the one involving the Arroceros Forest Park, a 2.2-hectare property described as Manila’s last lung.
In 2005, environmental group Winner Foundation sued then Manila Mayor Lito Atienza and the city government for constructing a teacher’s building inside the forest park.
“I handled the environmental administrative aspect, specifically concerning the trees that were removed in the area to give way to the building’s construction,” Luna said.
Winner withdrew in August the civil case against Atienza after his successor, Mayor Alfredo Lim, reopened the park to the public.
More recently, she found herself handling another case, this time concerning the 175-hectare bird sanctuary and eco-tourism area in the cities of Las Piñas and Parañaque.
Luna, whose cases are mostly pro bono, will receive at the end of the month an award for a paper she wrote about her group’s conservation efforts in Taal Lake.
The paper will be awarded the Kasimagaura Prize, a recognition given every two years by the Ibaraki Prefecture of Japan simultaneously with the holding of the World Lakes Conferences.
“The paper details our work in Taal Lake and the framework we are using to gather the stakeholders toward a workable management plan,” she said.
Luna happily noted that the public’s mindset about the environment has changed through the years.
“We can probably attribute the increasing interest because of recent disasters and the realization that climate change is upon us,” she stressed. “Definitely, a lot of people now want to do something good for the environment.”
