PRESS RELEASE
Environmental activist group Kalikasan PNE today urged the House of Representatives to convene a special session to investigate the latest attacks against the forest rangers of the Masungi Georeserve.
“The violence against environmental defenders like Masungi’s brave rangers have quadrupled during this first month of the elections. We urge Congress to exercise oversight over the situation by acting on the House Resolution filed by Bayan Muna to investigate the situation in Masungi,” said Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE.
Yesterday, Masungi Rangers shared on a facebook post, that they continue to be harassed, with the latest incident happening last Sunday March 5, when “a woman park ranger was harassed and her cousin punched in the gut by the same person who led the recent mauling of rangers.”
House Resolution No. 2499 was filed last March 2 by Bayan Muna Partylist Representatives Carlos Zarate, a human rights lawyer, and Eufemia Cullamat, an indigenous Lumad legislator, seeking to investigate the lack of enforcement by the police, local public authorities, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Kalikasan PNE recently released documented data demonstrating a 350% increase in incidents of rights violations against environmental defenders from January to February 2022. This resulted in a 483% spike in the number of affected defenders in the same time period.
“Congress should not sit idly while the protectors of one of the country’s world-renowned, climate-critical watershed conservation areas face worsening attacks from land grabbers. We need an urgent intervention at the policy level because the regulatory and enforcement bodies have failed with impunity,” Dulce declared.#
