“When governance like this is suspect - then the people’s welfare is adversely affected.” — Gina Lopez
by Ducky Paredes
In fairness, first, let us hear out Gina Lopez’s tirade against her perceived Palawan enemies in full:
“As you know, there have been articles written against our Brooke’s Point Eco-Academy Project in Palawan. I would just like to inform you that there is NO cease and desist order. In fact we just had our first management council meeting chaired by the mayor of Brookes Point. The council is membered by the Sanggunihan Bayan, the barangay captains of Ipilan and Aribungo, a member of the Church, an NGO representative serving the community near the area, academe (Palawan State University) and the president of the Tourism council of Brookes Point.
“A cease and desist is valid if there is danger to the environment or people’s lives. In this case the project is hiring 49 forest rangers to guard the forest, benefitting 90 families, helping them with forest products. I question the motives of PCSD in their intentions. There is mining on top of the rice fields of Palawan and abandoned mine sites all over the island. Why have they not stopped these operations? Now they want to stop these operations which are benefitting the people?
“The current crop of PCSD has totally lost its credibility to govern. They are even going against the very mandate they have been tasked with. They are using their authority to hit back (a case was filed against them in the ombudsman because of the degradation I saw with my own eyes while flying for 2 hours over Palawan).
“When governance like this is suspect - then the people’s welfare is adversely affected.” — Gina Lopez
Wow! She ranks her management council higher than the PCSD, created by a republic act to decide on Palawan’s environmental concerns!
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Expect that the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) officials will ask Gina to explain herself what she meant by saying that the present crop of PCSD officials “has totally lost its credibility to govern.”
Gina will be asked to explain herself and provide proof of perfidy on the part of the PCSD before the PCSD hears the pending petition to issue a cease and desist order against Gina’s land grab in Sabsaban Falls, Brooke’s Point.
Her statement claims that Lopez, who is from Metro Manila, is more concerned in protecting Palawan than the officials who are from the province. Silly!
Gina denies having received the order which was immediately effective until the PCSD Adjudication Board has ruled on the petition for the issuance of a permanent CDO for Gina’s not having secured first a SEP clearance. Gina is already in violation of RA 7611 or the Strategic Environmental Plan for Palawan Act.
Lopez tirade against the PCSD attacks the credibility of its individual members that include Palawan Governor Abraham Mitra as PCSD chairman, Alfredo Abueg, Jr. – PCSD Adjudication Board Chairman, former Vice Governor David Ponce de Leon, PCSD and Adjudication Board Vice Chairman and members — former Congressman Vicente Sandoval, Provincial Prosecutor Allen Ross Rodriguez, Atty. Nesario Awat, PNP Provincial Director Reynaldo Jagnis and Director Romeo Dorado.
As for Gina’s laying the premise for her continued violation of PCSD’s authority — ”a cease and desist order is valid if there is danger to the environment or people’s lives“ — there really is no need for that since the PCSD was set up precisely to protect Palawan’s fragile ecosystem.
Now, the PSCD knows what Gina Lopez is really about. She considers herself the authority on the environment and everyone else has no standing to question anything that Gina Lopez wants to do in Palawan or anywhere else. Only she and, possibly Mother Nature, too, know what is best for the environment!
Palawan, through the PSCD, can teach Gina that the environment of any locale is what the people make of it and outsiders — like her — have little say on what it should be. Certainly, claiming a waterfall for herself is not a very friendly thing to do — to the people who live in the area and will continue to live there when visiting environmentalists from Metro Manila such as the Gina Lopezes have moved on to their other pursuits.
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Our congressmen ought to vote on the RH Bill and get it done with. The longer it takes to take a vote, the more muddled it gets. Now, the bishops claim that they have the assurance that at least 140 congressmen will vote against the bill, It’s better we find out before they run for re-election in May 2013.
If the Church can boycott the congressmen who will do the right thing and vote for responsible parenthood; we, the people, who realize that population discipline is necessary to get this country moving forward can also vote against the RH Bill’s enemies.
Why would anyone be against the RH Bill if not for mistaken fears about it, fueled by bishops who don’t really care but only want to prove that they still have political power. In all other Catholic countries, there are similar programs that the RH Bill supporters want Filipino parents to have. If this is not wrong in Rome and other Catholic places, why will it be wrong in the Philippines?
This is all about political power and our constitution has long established in Article 1, Section 6 that “(t)he separation of Church and State shall be inviolable.”
Let’s be good citizens and follow our Constitution on this one.
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hvp 08.02.12
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