PRESS STATEMENT
04 July 2018
Are scientists also banned in Boracay? Is there a policy to prohibit independent scientific inquiry for the benefit of a science-informed policy and governance in the island’s so-called rehabilitation?
We in the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment are indignant over the recent police blockade of a team of concerned citizens and scientists who sought to provide much-needed relief for the residents of Boracay who have been suffering from the lack of income and living necessities stemming from Pres. Duterte’s closure of the island for its supposed rehabilitation. The members of the humanitarian mission were denied boarding at the port in Malay, Aklan despite their compliance with the already draconian security procedures in place over the island.
The environmental scientists and students who joined the mission were set to conduct a rapid investigation and assessment into the ongoing rehabilitation efforts of the government to determine if the rehabilitation efforts are effective and appropriate to the needs both of the people and the environment. Otherwise, the closure stands to be just another pile in the heap of the government’s past failed programs to clean up the island that came at a cost to taxpayers and workers’ welfare.
Various sectors, including the media and congressmen, have been calling for the Duterte government to release whatever rehabilitation plan it purportedly has. The demand for independent investigation remains falling onto deaf ears as the affected Boracay workers continue to suffer as the closure goes into its third month. We simply cannot take the government’s claims of progress for granted amid the crackdown on access to the island and the continuing lack of transparency behind the plan.
Now that concerned scientists have taken the initiative of checking out for themselves the effectiveness of the rehabilitation plan, we are left wondering if the Duterte government is afraid of an independent scientific investigation. Is there something that they are hiding from the public? Since when did virtual armed crackdown and enforced hunger of an entire population became necessary in the name of environmental rehabilitation?
The recent news that 3 out of 5 SWS survey respondents who are said to approve of Boracay’s closure should probably be corrected as ’3 out of 5 Filipinos kept in the dark about Boracay’s unscientific, inhumane, and repressive closure.’ If there should be any public outcry against a lack of science and transparency in matters concerning public interest such as environmental policy, it should be now.
We have a gunpowder-brained president making uneducated and violently disturbed policy pronouncements that have disastrous consequences for thousands of our fellow Filipinos. We have yes-men in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and other line agencies trying to whip up fake news after fake news of ‘successful’ rehab measures and indicators to justify the lack of an actual legitimate rehab program.
Recall when Duterte mouthpiece Harry Roque made the infamous ‘whale shark’ claim, while he remains completely ignorant of the many other natural or external factors why these migratory species could have actually passed by Boracay. This hodge-podge rehab program, which no one can independently ascertain if indeed appropriate to the needs of the ecosystems and communities, has resulted in the severe disruption of around 24,000 lives.
It is simply unacceptable. Duterte and his henchmen in the various concerned line agencies must be held accountable for keeping the public in the dark and for permitting the suffering of the island’s residents under this unjust closure order. We reiterate our demand to let independent experts freely assess the ongoing efforts and plans concerning the government’s purported rehabilitation program for Boracay. #
Reference:
Leon Dulce
National Coordinator
Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment
