UPLBRDE News Service

Renowned environment lawyer Antonio A. Oposa Jr. said that the Philippines is known to have the most voluminous legislation concerning the environment and its preservation. However, the record of implementation, he further said, suffers in the sickbed of non-compliance. His observation seems to be validated by the World Wildlife Fund International when it listed the environmental problems besetting the country and made the observation that these environmental problems are brought about by weak enforcement of laws and poor regulation.

In 1991, the Philippine legislature enacted Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code, transferring, among many others, certain environmental management functions to local government units (LGUs). Among the LGUs that is taking this stewardship responsibility seriously is Batangas City.

With impetus provided by Presidential Decree No. 1152 or the Philippine Environment Code, it entered into an agreement with the School of Environmental Science and Management (SESAM) in February 2009 for assistance in drafting the “Environmental Code of Batangas City, Philippines.”

SESAM constituted a multidisciplinary team of experts in various fields led by Dr. Maria Victoria Espaldon, environmental geographer and SESAM dean. Team members are Dr. Antonio Alcantara, land use and environment specialist; Dr. Eleno Peralta, lawyer and watershed and biosafety specialist; Marisa Sobremisana, water resource and air quality specialist; Dr. Carmelita Rebancos, environmental education specialist; and Dr. Maxima Flavier, environmental chemist. Environmental lawyer Ma. Paz Luna serves on the team as a technical advisor while a team composed of Sofia Alaira, Celso Espaldon and Aileen Florece provides valuable inputs in the field research aspect.

Bridging policy and reality

According to Sobremisana, apart from its desire to preserve the environment and reverse the damage created in the past, Batangas City wanted to set an example of good governance through the e-code. The ecode embodies the shared vision and aspirations of the constituents for the environment. It manifests the City’s high premium on environment and natural resources as a pillar of community development.

But will not this mean just another addition to the already voluminous legislation on enviroment in the Philippines? Will this be another tokenism that will just accummulate dust in the shelves? Sobremisana said that the e-code does not really aim to add more legal mumbo jumbo to the voluminous laws on the environment but rather, to provide substance and make them easy to apply at the local level.

She said that drawing up the e-code is like coming up with a law’s implementing rules and regulations or the set of guidelines that specifies how a law is implemented. In relation to this, SESAM, in close coordination with the Batangas City LGU, consolidated and examined existing ordinances, suggesting additional ordinances or provisions when the existing are found inadequate, customized laws to make them applicable and appropriate to the local situation, and simplified the language of environment laws. The Batangas City e-code was thus drafted on the basis of relevant Philippine laws, in effect bridging policy and reality.

Center of marine biodiversity

The e-code specifies and identifies the City’s resources from land to sea, its priority concerns, boundaries, areas of concern; and involves all sectors who will be covered by the e-code. Sobremisana said that among the critical areas identified through the e-code are the coastal areas and Batangas Bay, Mt. Banoy, Calumpang River, and Tingga Falls. Batangas and its seas are endowed with rich natural resources. Most famous among its resources is the Verde Island Marine Passage Corridor, the sealane that it shares with Mindoro.

In 2004, marine biologist Ken Carpenter of the World Conservation Union and researcher Victor Springer of the Smithsonian Institution found that the Verde Island Passage is right smack at the heart of the Coral Triangle, the center of the world’s highest concentration of marine shore fish biodiversity. A travel website (http://www.ivanhenares.com) said that because of this, the Verde Island Passage has been dubbed as “the world’s blue water version of the Amazon River basin.” It houses 2,938 individual species of algae, corals, crustaceans, mollusks, fishes, marine reptiles, and marine mammals.

Aside from being the capital and the largest city in the province, Batangas City is an important seaport, in fact the largest in the CALABARZON region. Batangas City is a major growth corridor in Region IV because it is richly endowed in agriculture and fishery resources and has great potential for growth in commerce, industry and tourism. However, unmanaged development can wreak havoc on the environment as countless experiences have proven.

Environment: a sacrificial lamb?

Sobremisana said that just like in most parts of the country, development in Batangas City has led to the unsustainable use of its resources. Its fresh and marine water resources have been abused to critical conditions because of industrial, domestic and agricultural waste. While the Verde Island Marine Passage may be said to be the center of biodiversity, it has also been declared a hotspot due to declining marine resources and threatened or even close-to-extinction marine species. Batangas Bay has been polluted by oil spill and grease that leak out of marine vessels plying its sealanes.

Mt. Banoy has been deforested and illegal settlers have encroached into what once were forested areas. The Calumpang River and Tingga Falls are heavily polluted. The City’s watershed resources have been endangered by timber and wildlife extraction, unmitigated land use conversion, quarrying, intensive agricultural practices, hazardous sewage, and improper chemical and solid waste disposal.

The City is also grappling with problems on squatting, incompatible land use, congestion and high population growth rate, flooding, air and water pollution, and sanitation. Its fishery and mangrove resources have been over-exploited. Overextraction, such as coral and sand mining and salt extraction, has damaged its coastal and marine resources, not to mention the impacts of hotels and recreation facilities located in the coastal areas.

The Batangas City officials recognize that the LGU’s environmental goods and services need to be sustainably managed and used in order to secure them for the benefit of the next generation. Thus, with the assistance of SESAM, it drew up the “road map” to ensure sustainable use of the City’s resources.

Landscape science approach

The research team was divided into subteams, specifically industrial, agriculture, forests, water and mineral resources, tourism, coastal zone and marine protected area, urban/settlement areas, port area, and a subteam on environmental initiatives from various sectors of the City.

Using landscape science approach, the team identified the environmental problems and solutions of the City. A NATO website (www.nato.int/science/pilot-studies/) describes the landscape science approach as one that critically examines environmental problems over larger spatial scales and assesses cumulative risks resulting from multiple problem sources. It enables environmental managers, urban planners, and decision-makers to examine environmental and economic problems in a larger geographic context.

Sobremisana said that the landscape science approach always considers the entire landscape as the unit of analysis. For instance, if an environmental manager identifies eutrophication (excessive plant growth and decay that will cause degradation of water and habitat quality) in a river or lake as one of the problems, analysis of the problem must not be confined to the river alone but to the entire system in which the river belongs. In this case, a watershed may be used as the unit of analysis.

Governance that transforms

Local government leaders have the responsibility to protect public welfare by providing the right policy structures and favorable policy implementation environment. They should also be able to gain the constituent’s support in following rules and regulations to ensure the sustainable use of resources.

Batangas City is only one of a handful of LGUs that have drawn up their e-codes. Through the e-code, the City takes a united action with its people in the protection and conservation of its environment and natural resources. The people actively cooperate with the local government units and other sectors that share the same goals and principles with them. As environmentalists often say, the environment should not be made a sacrificial lamb on the altar of development. This is only possible through political will and a focused attention to long-term goals for the LGU.

LGUs have the power of the purse to implement transformative legislation. Together with the academe that has expertise in environmental protection, LGUs can create pockets of environmental havens where resource sustainability is the hallmark of laws that are crafted and implemented. For starters, they can draw up e-codes for their areas of jurisdiction