Government urged to address environmental crises

A PEACE advocate group in Mindanao has urged the Philippine Government to address the environmental crises linked to land monopoly and extractive industries.

Bishop Felixberto Calang, convenor of the Sowing the Seeds of Peace, said unless comprehensive social and economic reforms are instituted, natural disasters can be averted.

“The roots of our environmental crises today are linked to monopoly of land, extractive industries and land conversions and an economy that is not pro-Filipino but caters to foreign interests,” Calang said in a statement.

He urged the government to take into consideration the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Rights (Caser) with the National Democratic Front (NDF) “because it provides concrete solutions to the root causes of environmental destruction.”

The group has been supportive of the talks between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the National Democratic Front (NDF).

“We have said time and again that significant reforms and genuine peace can only be attained when the root causes of the armed conflict are addressed. It is unlikely to speak of ending the civil war through laying-down of arms in as much as armed resistance persists only when injustices such as landlessness, labor exploitation, unemployment, human rights infringements, among others, abound,” Calang added.