Environmental activists demand President Arroyo to step down, join biggest rally

July 12, 2005
Press Release

Environmental activists demand President Arroyo to step down, join biggest rally

Another sector added its voice to the calls for the resignation of President Arroyo. In a statement, Environmental and Natural Resource Advocates for GMA’s Expulsion (ENRAGED) said that “GMA’s intransigence not only imperils our country’s moral fiber but also endangers the state of our environment; thus GMA must immediately step down.” ENRAGED is the first broad environmental alliance calling for President Arroyo to step down.

”President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has failed grossly as a President in the aspect of environmental protection and natural resource management,” according to ENRAGED. The environmental alliance also claimed that after four years, the Arroyo administration failed to reverse or arrest the wanton destruction of our ecosystems that led to environmental tragedies such as the 2003 Southern Leyte landslides and 2004 Aurora-Quezon flashfloods.

“We are joining rallies and protest actions to denounce the most unpopular, corrupt and anti-environment President and to expedite her removal from office,” says Clemente Bautista of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment and ENRAGED convenor. “GMA has been the prominent advocate of environmental plunder with her globalization policies that promote massive resource extraction. President Arroyo implemented the mining liberalization program which allowed foreign mining companies and local mining elite to exploit and extract our mineral resources at the expense of our people and environment. Mr. Bautista added

As of today, there are 421,723 hectares of land covered under mining agreement and another 9 million hectares under mining application.

“During her term, GMA approve 14 large-scale commercial logging projects which cover 166,551 hectares of forest lands. Several of these projects were located in the provinces of Quezon and Aurora that contributed to the fast denudation of forest cover in these areas”, says
Roy Alvarez of Mother Earth Foundation.

“One of the worst environmental crimes of GMA is her failure to provide justice and compensation to the victims of environmental tragedies such as the US military toxic waste contamination and 1996 Marinduque mine waste spill,” says Frances Quimpo of Center for Environmental Concerns and ENRAGED convenor. “Up to now victims continue to suffer and die yet their families receive no assistance from the Arroyo government and the corporations or institutions responsible,” Alvarez added.

ENRAGED is also putting forward an environmental agenda which includes the scrapping of Mining Act of 1995, Forestry Code of 1975 and Philippine Plant Variety Protection Act of 2002, stopping the commercialization of GMOs, moratorium on the construction of large dams and coal power plants, and the immediate rehabilitation of damaged ecosystems.###