Philippines: Church people, environmental groups call for ecological wholeness amid environmental crisis

We need to nurture an “ecospirituality” that redeems human belongingness to nature while challenging traditional beliefs that place humans above and apart from creation. This was the prevailing perspective among church people, people’s organisations and environmental groups that met to exchange views on the concept of ecological justice and ecological debt in the context of Philippine environmental problems.

The national consultation, held on August 13 in Quezon City, was jointly organised by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) and the international faith-based movement, Peace for Life.

Restoring the natural order

In its closing statement, the consultation lamented how the dominant Judaeo-Christian theology of creation has become “for humanity’s powerful few a biblical injunction for the rape and total subjugation of the natural order.”

“We reject the notion of nature as ‘resource’—inferior to and separate from human, an inert object to be subdued, exploited, abused. We renounce the ideology of neoliberal globalisation that transforms everything and everyone into a commodity for sale at a price,” the statement declared.

Rev. Dr. Ferdinand Anno, president of the Union Theological Seminary, led the participants in a Biblico-theological reflection on the subject. He argued that while biblical theology has desacralised the natural environment and led to human disconnectedness from nature, it is also the source for a human “eco-centric self-understanding” which reveals that the end of the divine plan is not the “so-called ‘salvation’ of humanity” but the natural order itself.

“This restoration to wholeness of the whole creation is what is enshrined in the Christian scriptures as the redemption of the whole cosmos.... Ecological wholeness, in brief, completes God’s redemptive project,” said Rev. Anno.

But ecological wholeness, added Rev. Anno, “is inextricably linked to the prophetic vocation to re-order social relations.... We cannot achieve social justice if we do not do justice to our natural environment, and ecological justice is beyond realisation without the institution of interhuman justice.”

Ecological injustice

Giving testimony to this link between social injustice and the plunder of the earth’s riches were Ka Tony Casitas of Rapu-Rapu Island in Albay and Jinky de Castro, a young Manobo student from Surigao del Sur, who spoke about their struggles against the harsh adverse impacts of mining operations on their communities.

According to Jinky, hundreds of indigenous families living in and around the Andap Valley in Surigao del Sur have been evacuated from their homes by the army, allegedly to clear the area of rebels. But local residents believe the military offensives were meant to pave the way for foreign firms to conduct mining operations in the Valley, which is reported to have one of the largest coal deposits in the country, along with gold, chromite and other minerals.

Ka Tony, spokesperson of Sagip Isla Sagip Kapwa, a grassroots organisation that has been at the forefront of the struggle against mining operations in Rapu-Rapu Island, laments that they must confront two enemies: the multinational mining company, and the military forces deployed by the government to protect the mining operation.

Indeed militarisation and human rights violations by the military have become commonplace in mining areas, confirms Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan-PNE (People’s Network for the Environment). Military detachments are set up in mining areas under the guise of counter-insurgency and crime prevention but are in fact there for the protection of the mining company and the suppression of opposition from local residents.

The Rapu-Rapu mine is one of the 63 priority large-scale mining projects of the Philippine government and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s pet project, according to a Kalikasan-PNE report. Since the mine opened in 2005, it has incurred two massive mine tailings spills, blamed as the main cause of widespread fish kills that have threatened the primary source of food and livelihood for thousands of Rapu-Rapu villagers.

Bautista argued that the Philippines, once hailed as a world “biodiversity superstar” is in a state of chronic environmental crisis as he presented facts and figures illustrating the problems ailing the different ecosystems throughout the country. According to Kalikasan-PNE, “instead of protecting and defending our patrimony, [the Arroyo] administration is engaging in a grand clearance sale of Philippine forests, lands, mineral ores, agricultural produce, biodiversity, water, and marine wealth to the highest foreign bidder.”

Ecological debt

The environmental crisis confronting the Philippines and other developing countries of the global South can be directly linked to the global capitalist crisis, according to Rosario Bella Guzman, IBON Foundation’s executive editor.

“Rich countries have the disproportionate responsibility for the roots of the ecological crisis,” added Guzman, “but the poor countries are more vulnerable. Poor countries are poor in large part because of the global capitalist system that rich countries have imposed. Such underdevelopment limits them now to adapt [to the impacts of the ecological crisis].”

In her presentation, Guzman argued that linking the historical plunder of the planet’s resources for profit with the current crisis in the global capitalist system shows that any market-based solution (e.g., “carbon trading” and “climate funding”) to environmental problems such as climate change, the depletion of non-renewable resources, widespread pollution and loss of biodiversity will only prolong and worsen the ecological crisis.

The rich, industrialised countries of the North owe an ecological debt to developing countries of the South “on account of historical and current resource plundering, environmental degradation and the disproportionate appropriation of environmental space to dump toxic wastes and greenhouse gases causing climate change,” said Athena Peralta, consultant for the World Council of Churches (WCC) project on Poverty, Wealth and Ecology.

Role of churches

According to Peralta, “churches have a critical role in lifting up alternative models of genuine ‘development’ and building the necessary moral courage and political will to effect transformations in economic systems, lifestyles and values.”

Philippine churches, through the NCCP’s environmental ministry, has played the role of “accompanier” and served as a “tabernacle” for the people’s struggles to oppose environmentally destructive projects, said Mervin Toquero of the NCCP Program Unit on Faith, Witness and Service.

Toquero shared with the participants the long history of the Council’s engagement with environmental issues which was carried out primarily through NCCP’s Comprehensive Ecology and Environmental Protection Program (CEEPP). The CEEPP, according to Toquero, was “a pioneering work among Philippine churches” and provided “valuable lessons and insights not only in environmental education and advocacy but also in implementing development programs in the Philippine context.”

The CEEPP “extended invaluable material and moral support for the conduct of a number of campaigns in the regions, especially around the issues of large-scale and other destructive forms of mining, such as open pit mining, conversion of agricultural lands into tourist and export industry zones, and mega dams,” said Toquero, former CEEPP staff.

The participants to the consultation agreed to continue and build on the NCCP’s environmental ministry, renewing it with awareness-building efforts on the concept of ecological justice and the cultivation of an eco-spirituality. The group identified several courses of action to this end, including a broad national gathering that would map out a unified action plan on ecological debt.

The national consultation was specifically convened as a Philippine contribution to the consultation process initiated by the WCC project on Poverty, Wealth and Ecology on a proposed statement of WCC’s official position on ecological justice and ecological debt.

The participants expressed agreement with the principles set out in the proposed WCC statement and, in its own closing statement “challenged the industrialised countries of the North... and their multinational corporations and partner governments to recognise, pay off and make amends for their ecological debt to the countries of the South.”

Peace and Wholeness of Life for All: A Call for an ‘Eco-Just’ World – closing statement of the NCCP-PfL National Consultation on Ecological Justice and Ecological Debt, 13 August 2009
WCC Statement on eco-justice and ecological debt – adopted on 2 September 2009