From the News! – Your Daily News

Yasmin D. Arquiza, Vera Files
Manila Times

Editor’s note: The first part reported how Davao City officials and farmers in that area are fighting aerial pesticide spraying, which they say is killing crops and making people sick. But the banana plantation owners, who have their crops sprayed for fungi, claim those charges are not true.

Last of two parts

The legal battle over the ban on aerial spraying of poisonous pesticides in Davao City, which has reached the Supreme Court, is not the first case in which farmers squared off against big agribusinesses over the issue of public health.

But it is the first time that farmers have the city government on their side. The city government in fact went as far as imposing a ban on aerial spraying of pesticides, through an ordinance banana companies say is unconstitutional and which is now the subject of the legal tussle.

“This is a landmark case on health and environment, which highlights the obligation of local government units to protect the public welfare,” said Lia Esquillo, executive director of the Interface Development Interventions (IDIS). The environmental group is assisting local communities in their protest against aerial spraying.

The joint committees on environment, agriculture and health of the city council, in their report, aptly described the controversy as a case of “public health and environment vs. local economy.”

Bananas provide more than 75 percent of export revenues in the region, making it Davao’s No. 1 dollar earner. The Philippines is the fourth-largest exporter of bananas in the world and, together with leading exporter Ecuador, has posted the highest growth rates in the industry in recent years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

The case is not the first one involving controversial pesticide use in banana plantations in Davao. In 1993, banana workers in Davao del Norte were among 16,000 banana plantation workers who filed a class suit in Texas, USA, against chemical companies that manufactured the pesticide DBCP, or dibromochloropropane.

A $41.5-million settlement was paid in 1997 by the companies, although refusing to admit fault or liability. They claimed DBCP pesticide, which was found to cause sterility in men, was not used properly.

In the current case, both the farmers and banana companies feel they are the aggrieved party. The companies were the ones that initiated court action to stop the enforcement of an ordinance banning aerial spraying of pesticide. They filed a case against the city government with the Regional Trial Court for “violating the equal protection clause of the Constitution” after the local legislation took effect in March last year.

The Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association (PBGEA), Davao Fruits Corp. (DFC) and Lapanday Agricultural and Development Corp. (LADC) said the city ordinance constitutes “unreasonable exercise of police power” because banning aerial spraying would be “tantamount to confiscation of property without due process of law.”

An immediate shift to ground spraying would cost banana companies P882 million in potential losses, the petitioners said. They also questioned the requirement of a 30-meter buffer zone to protect neighboring farms and residents from pesticide drift, saying this would greatly reduce the area of banana plantations.

In September last year, the lower court upheld the validity of the city ordinance. It said the experts presented by the banana growers merely gave “unsupported allegations” and “theoretical analysis” on the health and environmental risks of aerial spraying.

Judge Renato Fuentes gave weight to farmers’ testimonies of “simple lives, gravely affected by a concerted problem, confronting them in their everyday existence.”

The banana companies elevated the petition to the Court of Appeals, which granted in November a temporary restraining order allowing the banana companies to resume aerial spraying.

In January, the court issued a preliminary injunction, citing the “apparent unconstitutionality of the ordinance, albeit inconclusive.” It further stated that the ordinance “seriously invades the appellants’ right that will cause them irreparable injury if not protected.”

Under the new rules of court, the Court of Appeals should have decided the case by July this year, or six months after it granted the preliminary injunction, according to lawyer Raymond Salas of the legal advocacy group Saligan, which is assisting the farmers.

When the appellate court failed to do so, the city government and the farmers elevated the case to the Supreme Court on July 25, questioning the injunction order, which had effectively prevented the enforcement of the ordinance.

“Mere allegations of unconstitutionality cannot be enough for the Court of Appeals to issue a preliminary injunction,” Salas said.

The farmers, in their appeal, argued that “the conduct of aerial spraying, being a mere method to release toxic substances over an area, is not a right under the law. By concluding otherwise, the Honorable Court of Appeals commits clear and grave abuse of discretion.”

Even the Office of the Solicitor General upheld the action of the city government. In response to the appellate court’s request, Assistant Solicitors General Magtanggol Castro and Charina Soria issued a legal opinion on June 20 that the banana companies had failed to show the ordinance was unconstitutional, and that the city had simply followed the general welfare clause of the Local Government Code.

On the other hand, banana companies found support from the Department of Trade and Industry in Region 11.

The department’s Regional Director Merly Cruz said in a position paper submitted to the city council that Davao’s leading banana industry directly employs 12,000 workers in the plantations. Support services such as stevedoring, trucking, packaging and security indirectly link up 100,000 more workers to the industry.

Public nuisance

Before coming out with the ordinance, the city council had created a technical working group, which included representatives from nongovernment organizations, affected communities and the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association. The city government also created a fact-finding team headed by City Planning and Development Coordinator Mario Luis Jacinto to look into the issue.

After collating all the data, the joint committee on environment, agriculture and health of the city council issued their report, which said in part: “We have heard both sides of the issue: Public health and environment vs. local economy. The two are of great importance to any civilization. But when both factors collide, the policy of the State comes in to shed light and to remind us of the basic framework in which the government is created.”

“Pesticides are poisonous, aerially spraying it is a nuisance, banning its aerial application is a justified response,” the joint committee asserted. “Can anyone imagine an urban area being aerially sprayed with pesticides? What makes the life and safety of the inhabitants of a community in nearby agricultural entities less? To remain indifferent to the plight of those being aerially sprayed with pesticides is inhuman.”

Davao City has the biggest population in the region: 1.3 million people compared to less than one million each for the three Davao provinces and Compostela Valley, according to the latest National Statistics Office figures. Its population density and status as a major urban center have made it a flashpoint in the aerial spraying controversy.

But the city is not the first to enact legislation against aerial spraying. In 2001, the provincial board of Bukidnon passed its own ordinance against the practice, saying “unstable wind direction” while applying pesticide could pose danger to people, animals and crops. The ordinance noted that “poultries, piggeries, cattle ranches and other agri-based businesses and residential areas abut farm boundaries” of banana plantations.

The city ordinance has sent ripples in the neighboring province of Davao del Sur. During the Earth Day celebration in April, Governor Douglas Cagas publicly criticized aerial spraying, citing the results of a health study in a village beside a banana plantation.

“Traces of pesticides that are being aerially sprayed were detected in their blood samples and water resources. If this practice continues, I am not providing my constituents a healthy body and environment that they inherently deserve,” he said.

Provincial Board Member Merlin Bello, who chairs the committee on health and agriculture, said he has attended many community meetings where residents have complained about aerial spraying in banana plantations. He has expressed support for the passage of a similar ordinance in Davao del Sur.

Alan Sanggayan, president of a local association called Lambigit, said their group has submitted a petition to the provincial government calling for a ban on aerial spraying because of health concerns and environmental pollution.

Sanggayan is a member of the Kalagan indigenous community in Sitio Budoy in Barangay Guihing, Hagonoy town, where vast areas are devoted to bananas. Successive expansion of the plantations since the 1970s has hemmed in the 700 families living inside the ancestral land claim on all sides, which have to contend with pesticide spray.

Near the market of Hagonoy, a bulletin board indicating the supposed date of spraying is blank, despite regular aerial spraying in the area. Elders of the Kalagan people said they are rarely notified about the schedules. They are also complaining about the more potent nematicide applied on the ground and the stench of boom spray in other areas.

Organic bananas

Even before the city ordinance was proposed, environmentalists have reported cases of pesticide poisoning from various application methods, expansion into watershed areas and conversion of rice and fruit farms into banana plantations.

“The aerial spraying issue epitomizes the ills of corporate agriculture,” said Esquillo of the Interface Development Interventions. “Corporate-led plantations and mono-cropping are the real problems.”

She said farmers’ cooperatives in Mindanao are already producing organic bananas, and many have gone into diversified plantations or intercropping to control diseases.

In the farming district of Calinan, farmer Cecilia Moran said most of her neighbors have leased their coconut farms to banana and pineapple growers that practice mono-cropping. Only farmers in the village of Malagos grow bananas under their coconut trees.

Davao businessman Jesus Ayala, a longtime industry player, has ventured into the production of upland Cavendish bananas using organic methods through his Tristar group. The company has toured city officials in its plantations, presenting the farm as an environment-friendly model of corporate farms near watershed areas.

The move is in line with the city government’s Jacinto report, which recommended that “long-term use of organic pesticides should be adopted” in banana plantations to eliminate health and environmental risks to surrounding communities.

VERA Files is written by veteran journalists taking a deeper look into current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”

Dino Balabo
Philippine Star

PANDI, Bulacan – About 700 drums of suspected toxic waste were discovered by local police after the arrest of eight persons who were caught red handed while dumping the same in a vacant lot here over the weekend.

The discovery of the suspected toxic waste clandestinely stocked at a walled compound at Barangay Masuso came after incidents of toxic and industrial waste dumping in the towns of Marilao, Norzagaray, and the cities of San Jose del Monte and Meycauayan City.

It also confirmed that Bulacan has become the favorite dumping ground of hazardous and toxic industrial wastes by unscrupulous waste haulers which the Department of Environment and Natural Resources have failed to regulate and monitor.

Chief Inspector Rene Casis, the chief of police of this town told The STAR that at least 300 drums of suspected toxic waste were found in a vacant lot owned by a certain “Fely” at Barangay Masuso, after they arrested eight persons while in the act of dumping toxic waste, and confiscated 48 empty drums and an Isuzu Elf Truck (UPY-188) and an Isuzu Forward Truck (RDP-829).

The arrested persons were identified as Jessie Camosco of Barangay Camanyangan, Sta. Maria town, and his helpers – Blandino Cabarles, Mark Alfred Cabarles, Michael Cabarles, Aram Estrella, Ronald Rogados, all of Barangay Tungkong Mangga, San Jose del Monte City; and Jefrey Timbang of San Miguel town.

Casis said they filed separate charges against the suspects for violation of the provision of RA 900 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, and vowed to file another set of charges pending the results of laboratory tests conducted to determine if the waste were indeed toxic.

He said that the suspects hauled the suspected toxic waste from D&L factory based in Manggahan, Pasig City on Wednesday.

He also showed a delivery receipt presented by the suspects which was signed by a certain Ping Yu.

However, the suspects said they do not know that their cargo was toxic noting that it was their first time to deliver the same to Barangay Masuso.

Camosco, the driver of the truck told the STAR that a certain “Mang Jess” rented his truck from his boss whom he identified only as “Bong “ from Manila.

He said that “Bong” contacted a certain “Romy” who arranged for the dumping of the waste in the lot owned by a certain “Fely”.

Residents said that “Romy is the caretaker of “Fely”, the own of the lot.

When interview by The STAR, Pedro Avendaño, the chairman of Barangay Masuso said that the dumping operations in the area started less than five months ago.

Avendaño also said that contents of the drum were drained on a creek located at the northern end of the lot during rainy season.

But other residents said they have been complaining about the foul smell that emits as early as last year.

For his part, Mayor Roberto Oca Jr., told The STAR that he gave the police a week to complete their investigation and file charges against everyone who are involved n the operations.

He also said that the dumping of suspected toxic waste is an unfortunate incident in his town nothing that it is one of the poorest municipality in Bulacan.

Philippine Star

Thirty-six percent of Filipinos agree that pollution is “an acceptable tradeoff” for economic progress which could have implications on the government and private groups’ campaign to protect the environment, a recent survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) said.

However, more Filipinos or 42 percent don’t agree with this, while 20 percent are undecided, according to the SWS survey commissioned by international environmental group Greenpeace.

The survey, conducted from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3, 2007, used face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults divided into random samples of 300 each in Metro Manila, the balance of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Fifty percent of Filipinos say the danger of water pollution to one’s health is very serious, 22 percent say it is somewhat serious, nine percent say it is a little serious and 19 percent say it is hardly serious, the survey said.

On the danger of water pollution to the environment, 50 percent say it is very serious, 22 percent say somewhat serious, 10 percent a little serious, and 18 percent say it is hardly  serious, the SWS noted.

The SWS said 48 percent people nationwide say they are aware of at least one environmental law.

“Specifically, 27 percent are aware of the Solid Waste Management Act, 26 percent are aware of the Clean Water Act, and 15 percent are aware of other laws enacted to help prevent pollution. Half or 50 percent say they are not aware of any law to prevent pollution.”

Forty percent say these laws are rarely enforced, 29 percent say they are occasionally enforced, 15 percent say they are often enforced, and eight percent say they are almost always enforced.

– Helen Flores

Leila Salaverria
Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court has designated 117 trial courts as “environmental courts” to hear cases involving violations of laws protecting the country’s natural resources and to speed up their resolution.

In a resolution, the tribunal approved the recommendation of the Philippine Judicial Academy to designate such courts “for improved environmental adjudication” in the country.

The resolution, dated Nov. 20, 2007, was received by the Supreme Court’s public information office only on Jan. 9, a copy of which was obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

Of the 117 environmental courts, 45 were earlier designated as forestry courts.

Forty-eight “first-level” courts and 24 “second-level” courts will handle all types of environmental cases, including violations of the Fisheries Code and the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act, which establishes national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.

Metropolitan and municipal trial courts belong to the “first level,” while regional trial courts comprise the “second level.”

Other laws pertaining to the environment include the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the Coconut Preservation Act, and the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act.

The high court said all single-sala first-level and second-level courts would be considered special courts which can hear and decide environmental cases.

Indispensable

As part of the program, the tribunal will conduct training seminars for the personnel of the environmental and appellate courts.

Chief Justice Reynato Puno earlier said the environment was an important component in ensuring that fundamental human rights to life, health and well-being were upheld.

“Happily, it is now beyond argument that environmental protection is indispensable to support and sustain some of the most fundamental of human rights, such as the rights to life, to health and to well being,” Puno said in a speech in July last year at the Asian Justices Forum on the Environment held in the country.

Economic and social costs

A World Bank (WB) report placed the economic cost of water pollution at P67 billion a year.

It is estimated that a third of patients in hospitals in the country are suffering from water-borne diseases, such as diarrhea and cholera.

Another WB study placed the yearly economic loss from the effects of air pollution on health and productivity in Metro Manila at $392 million.

The social and economic costs of deforestation and illegal logging are also staggering as they lead to flooding, landslides, deaths and loss of wildlife habitat.

Warning bells

Puno said the destruction of the environment had been recognized for over two decades but the problem persisted despite the enactment of many laws to stop it.

“Unfortunately, they have not put a brake to the bothersome decline of the environment,” he said.

Puno noted that the warning bells on the negative effects of climate change “keep on ringing and ringing loud and clear.”

Climate change also negatively affects developing countries that rely on industries like agriculture and fishing, which are climate-sensitive, he said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2007 along with former US Vice President Al Gore, has warned that rising temperatures due to greenhouse gas emissions will cause widespread drought, floods, higher sea levels and worsening storms.

Severe typhoons

In the Philippines, between 1980 and 2002 alone, 19 severe tropical storms and typhoons each caused damage of more than P1 billion and deaths of at least 100 people, according to the Greenpeace report, “Crisis or opportunity: Climate change impact and the Philippines.”

The report said another 10 storms during the period caused either more than 100 deaths or at least P1 billion in damage.

Puno said the effective enforcement of laws to protect the environment would need the cooperation among countries.

The United Nations is frantically trying to forge a deal to address climate change. At the UN climate conference in Bali last December, world leaders adopted a plan to negotiate a new global warming pact by 2009.

The talks over the next two years could determine for years to come how well the world will cut emissions of greenhouse gases.

Courts for killings

It was not the first time that Puno created special courts to handle special cases. In March last year, he designated 99 courts to handle cases involving political killings.

The special courts were tasked with resolving the cases in 90 days, with the warning that delays would be punished.

Puno has been a staunch advocate of respect for human rights and has spoken out against extralegal killings and enforced disappearances.

He has also deplored the human rights violations that have taken place as a result of the war on terrorism.

With Inquirer Research

Nora O. Gamolo
Manila Times

First of two parts

Government has only worsened the country’s waste problem by putting up new landfills and dumps. The solution is really to minimize garbage by reducing, reusing and recycling materials where possible, as indicated in Republic Act (RA) 9003, the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act.

“Much of the so-called ‘garbage’ we dump are in fact materials that could be recovered though various means. Biodegradables can be composted. Paper, bottles, and some plastics can be recycled,” said Rei Panaligan, coordinator of the EcoWaste Coalition.

The coalition is a waste and pollution watchdog established by some 50 environmentalist groups involved in different ways of advocating environmental protection. Where it concerns solid wastes, the main wastes produced by both households and industry, it calls for zero waste production.

“Why create unnecessary wastes? If we are able to segregate what is reusable and recyclable at the household level, we will be reducing our garbage by as much as 95 percent,” said Panaligan.

He added, “If we are able to do that, we will have only residual waste of five percent of total garbage that cannot be recycled or reused, and therefore will end up in dumps and landfills. This small percentage will then be our only problem.”

The coalition has expressed dismay with the solution being offered by the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) over what was perceived to be a looming garbage crisis in the city due to the impasse over two dumps in Rizal province.

Bayani Fernando, the MMDA head, told reporters after a Cabinet meeting in Malacañang that the country needs more dumps and even suggested the use of incinerators to deal with the perennial trash problem.

“His fixation with dumps and incinerators as revealed in his recent statements only shows his utter lack of respect for existing environmental laws that are meant to conserve our nation’s depleting resources and safeguard the public and the environment from toxic harm,” Panaligan said.

“Republic Act 9003 calls for the adoption of the best environmental practices in ecological waste management and explicitly excludes waste incineration as an ecological option. These polluting disposal facilities are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere,” added Manny Calonzo of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.

The EcoWaste Coalition described Fernando’s ideas as not only “bad” for public health and the environment, but also utterly illegal.

Landfills and open dumps, according to studies, account for 34 percent of human-related methane emissions to the atmosphere, a global warming gas that has 23 times more heat-trapping power than carbon dioxide.  They are illegal under RA 9003.

Incinerators, on the other hand, have significantly higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions (per kilowatt) than a coal-fired power plant when all of the carbon coming out of an incinerator stack is measured. Such emissions are banned based on another law, the country’s Clean Air Act.

The MMDA has belied a looming garbage crisis in the metropolis, yet visibly, it has been in the thick of negotiations between the Rodriguez (formerly Montalban) municipal government and the Rizal provincial government, both of which are offering one landfill each to Metro Manila local governments.

The coalition is dismayed over the MMDA’s suggestions to dump garbage from Metro Manila in nearby provinces if the landfill impasse will not be resolved.

Panaligan said that to make matters worse, the existing waste disposal facilities in Rizal are located inside a watershed area in contravention of RA 9003 which bans the construction or operation of landfills or any waste disposal facility in aquifer, groundwater reservoir or watershed areas.

“Landfills for mixed waste undermine individual, household and community efforts to segregate and recycle discards. These repackaged dumps yield toxic garbage juices called leachates that contaminate the water supply, and release huge amounts of methane gas that contribute to the worsening climate conditions,” Romy Hidalgo of the Coalition’s Task Force Dumps/Landfills said.

“Why is it that our poor communities are always the first to be compromised by the incompetence of our government officials to solve the garbage problem? We should stop treating our fellow Filipinos as garbage, and our beautiful land as a dump,” Hidalgo added.

“The closure of the Montalban Solid Waste Disposal Facility is a welcome development. However, we object to the government’s nonstop pursuit of the obsolete ‘collect-dump’ approach to deal with the perennial garbage crisis,” he said.

Hidalgo added, “We should be focusing our energies and realigning funds toward zero waste programs that will reduce and eventually stop the creation of trash, and enable communities to manage their discards ecologically.”

To be continued

Manila Times

The Philippine government has been losing around $2 million annually since 2002 and will stand to lose more until 2014 if it continues to pay for the 26 discarded incinerators that were supposed to be used to dispose of the country’s hospital wastes. Environmental groups and advocates against debt servicing called on both the Philippine and Austrian governments to annul this “toxic” debt amounting to P503,647,200. The Ecological Waste Coalition of the Philippines (EcoWaste), Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), Greenpeace Southeast Asia and the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) said the loan, worth half a billion pesos of incinerators for 26 public hospitals to “help” in the proper disposal of medical wastes, was illegitimate and a waste of money.

The loan, contracted by the Department of Finance in 1997 with Bank Austria, was aimed to finance a project to establish waste disposal facilities for hospitals run by the Department of Health (DOH). Incinerators called the Multizon, manufactured by Liechtenstein-based Hoval, were the main component of the loan. These were supplied to the DOH by Austrian firm VAMED. The Clean Air Act passed in 1999, however, imposed a ban on incinerators effective 2003.

Payments to the Hoval loan this year already constitute one-fourth of the health department’s budget for infrastructure, and are almost equal to what it will spend for both local health programs and the prevention of emerging diseases. (See table above)

“Is it not gut-wrenching to be paying for these incinerators when we know that the Department of Health is short of funds for nonburn treatment technologies for decontaminating infectious or pathological wastes that will not endanger hospital staff and host community with dioxin and other harmful emissions?” asked Manny Calonzo, secretary of EcoWaste Coalition.

The incinerators, which Greenpeace Southeast Asia claimed were substandard and did not meet the emission levels guaranteed by the supplier, had all been retired in 2003, when the incineration ban promulgated by the Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999 (CAA) took effect and when the DOH failed in its attempt to exempt them from the ban. They were part of the DOH’s project dubbed “The Austrian Project for the Establishment of Waste Disposal Facilities and Upgrading of the Medical Equipment Standard in DOH Hospitals.”

Health Care Without Harm, on the other hand, declared: “As part of Austrian Official Development Assistance (ODA), the project’s purpose had the lofty goal of helping Philippine hospitals safely dispose of medical wastes. But instead of helping, the ODA just exacerbated the problem. In the joint Department of Health (DOH)-World Health Organization (WHO) emission test conducted on one of the incinerators, the dioxin emission was a whopping 870 times over the limit set by the CAA. Now, we not only have a medical waste problem, we have an illegitimate debt that needs to be paid.”

The Manila Times

SOME 105 victims of harmful mine tailings disposal in Calancay Bay in Santa Cruz, Marinduque, have filed a P50-billion class suit against Marcopper Mining Corp. and its Canadian parent company, Placer Dome.

Ronaldo Gutierrez, legal counsel and executive director of the multisectoral group, Upholding Life and Nature (ULAN), said the affected residents are asking the Boac Regional Trial Court to order the mining firm to pay them P15 million for health damages, P10…