Since the last SONA (State of the Nation Address) of President Duterte, many issues crucial to many sectors and groups have been raised that we consider as mere diversions of the more pressing national issue at hand -- ending the COVID-19 pandemic. MAKAKALIKASAN, an emerging political movement of the Greens reiterates our position on some of these diversions. We reiterate our position against the revival of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and any nuclear development in the Philippines on the grounds of public safety and ecological threat owing to the still no solution to the issue of final nuclear waste disposal.
We reiterate further our position against the imposition of the death penalty on the grounds that this is inhumane and has never been shown to be any effective deterrent to heinous crimes. We also reiterate our position against any form of charter change at this point in time as we believe that the benefits of most of the more important arguments for changing the form of government can already be achieved by the full implementation of key laws such as the local government code, IPRA, BARMM law and others. There issues are very important. However, we must set aside all of these for the meantime and resolve them later. We need to focus at the moment in ending this pandemic. We also take note that while we are all locked down and isolated, so many critical projects and operations critical against the environment and communities seemed to have continued or acceleration. These includes the ground breaking of the Kaliwa Dam project that signals the start of its construction despite continued opposition by the Indigenous Peoples of the area as well as some local government units and green groups including us. There is also the resumption of mining companies previously closed down due to violations of the law and the terms of their environmental impact clearances. We must go back to normal now so we can STOP all of these and instead move towards the real GREEN NORMAL. Instead of all these diversions and opportunistic backstabbing, we urge the government to focus on ending this COVID-19 pandemic by considering the following:
For fellow Filipinos, MAKAKALIKASAN enjoins everyone not to be crippled with fear and instead strengthen ourselves so that our own body can learn to fight this infection as it has happened in the past. We also call on the public to be responsible for managing the waste from used mask and PPE and face shields and for government to find ways and means to collect and dispose them properly as special hazardous waste. Despite the impulse of clamoring for change radically, we enjoin the Filipinos to not fall into the trap of violence and instead remain active non-violent. We also call on the protector of the people to protect us now. Where government has failed, people must not. We must end this pandemic soon so we can get back to normal and towards a truly GREEN NORMAL. For more information, please contact CONTACT PERSON: Roy Cabonegro, Convenor CELL NUMBER: 0966 3718760 EMAIL: [email protected]
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
STATEMENTS
These are public statements of the Nature Party PH (MAKAKALIKASAN) ARCHIVES
April 2023
CATEGORIES
|