Groups urge voters to elect green leaders in May polls

Environmental advocates have urged the electorates to choose future leaders who have green agenda in the upcoming May elections.

The call was made by Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), a network of more than 80 non-government organizations that advocate environmental and human rights issues, during the Earth Day celebration on April 22.

“We urge each voter to look into the platforms of the candidates especially with regards to their environmental and development agenda for our country,” ATM Coordinator Jaybee Garganera, in a press release said.

“We seek green leaders that possess strong political will to change the system of thoughtless fast-tracked issuance of business permits to the extractive industries and poor regulation of these industries,” Garganera stressed.

On Thursday, more than 200 environmental advocates gathered at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to create public awareness on environmental issues and encourage voters to pick leaders who have green agenda.

“Celebrating Earth Day remind us of Mother Earth’s centuries-old generosity providing humanity the resources we need to survive in this planet. Reality is, we have used our resources beyond our basic needs with our hunger for personal ‘wants’ and development,” Garganera lamented.

Garganera lambasted the government’s misguided development system that has left the environment in critical condition.

The continued extraction of mineral resources has exhausted the earth’s capacity to regenerate or replenish, relentlessly polluted our air, water and land and disturbed our climate due to excessive emissions, Garganera said.

“We call on a system change not climate change! We need to change the current misguided development system that exacerbates climate change. In particular, the aggressive promotion of extractive and fossil-fuel based economy such as logging, mining and coal-fired power, squander what is left of our finite resources,” he added.

Garganera urged the scrapping of Philippine Mining Act of 1995, and batted for the passage of an alternative law on mineral management. He also called for a moratorium on large-scale mining operations.

He said the country’s future leaders should deal strongly with “environmental criminals and implement stricter measures on environmental safeguards.”