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Thursday, July 27, 2006
RP leads in environment laws
By Rose O. Verzosa
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
It’s still “premature” to make comparative assessment on the environmental practices of eight Southeast Asian countries, but the Philippines appears to be “way ahead” in the aspect of environmental legislation.
This was among the observations made yesterday by two foreign professors from the School of Environment, Resources and Development of the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Bangkok, Thailand.
Dr. Ranjith Perera and Dr. Vilas Nitivattananon are in Cebu for a workshop on urban environmental management policies and good practices in the Philippines.
Representatives from local government units, nongovernment organizations and National Government agencies attended the workshop.
Perera said water and sanitation top the world’s environmental problems. Solid waste management and air pollution are also common problems among different countries.
Nittivattananon said the Southeast Asia Urban Environmental Management Applications (SEA-UEMA) project, which is a joint initiative of the AIT and the Canadian International Development Agency, has been gathering baseline data on air and sanitation, solid waste and air pollution from its eight beneficiary-countries.
These are Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor-Leste and Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
Nittivanon said a “preliminary comparison” of these data would show that the Philippines “leads” in terms of environmental legislation because of national laws covering environmental concerns, like the Solid Waste Management Act and the Clean Air Act.
Some Southeast Asian countries do not have such laws, he said.
But Nittivanon said they have yet to look further into the implementation of these laws.
Perera said the Philippines is the only one among eight countries that has a separate government agency handling sustainable environmental development.
“It is rather premature to come up with a comparative study (of the eight countries) at this stage,” said Perera, who is also the director of the SEA-UEMA project.
SEA-EUMA is a five-year project that started in 2003. It aims to improve the urban environmental conditions in the Southeast Asian region by implementing sound environmental management policies and practices.
The project provides scholarships for urban environmental management education and funding for urban environmental management application and networking.
Perera observed that there’s a “wide gap” in the policy development of the eight beneficiary-countries, with each country having its own approach.
In the Philippines, the cities of Cebu, Naga, Quezon and San Fernando are identified as the project’s priority cities.
Emma Irene Mende, chairman of the Masters of Science in Environmental Management (MCEM) program of the University of Southern Philippines (USP), said yesterday’s workshop would try to review the urban environmental policies in the Philippines and in local communities, particularly those related to water and sanitation, solid waste management and air pollution.
USP organized the workshop, along with SEA-UEMA.
Mende warned local government units against addressing environmental issues similarly across different barangays.
“What works in one area may not work in another area,” she said.
In Cebu, Mende cited the Kuwarta sa Basura project of Barangay Luz, Cebu City and the waste water facility and conservation program of the Coca-Cola Bottling Plant in Mandaue City as among commendable programs. (ROV)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 27, 2006 issue)
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