Arroyo’s ‘Green Philippines claim at UN belied by environmentalists

“Arroyo turning RP a bloody red with human rights violations and environmental disasters!” — Kalikasan PNE

Philippine green groups today vehemently belied Pres. Gloria Arroyo’s claims to building an environmentally-friendly “Green Philippines” at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, saying that the Philippines was “turning anything but green under the anti-environment and anti-people Arroyo administration”.

“Rather than making the Philippines a greener place, Pres. Arroyo is turning the country a bloody shade of red due to the number of environmental disasters and extrajudicial killings, such as that of environmental advocates,” Clemente Bautista Jr., National Coordinator of Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) said in a statement.

“It is hypocritical of Pres. Arroyo to deplore the military junta’s crackdown in Burma at the international front when her own backyard in the Philippines is a world-class showcase of human rights violations, political repression and corruption,” Bautista added.

Human rights groups count more than 800 extrajudicial killings and 200 enforced disappearances of activists under the Arroyo administration. Among the ranks of environmental activists, Kalikasan PNE has documented 21 cases of extrajudicial killings ever since the Arroyo administration’s start in 2001.

Bautista also belied Pres. Arroyo’s claims at the UN that her administration was striving for environmental protection.

“Under Pres. Arroyo, the Philippines is also turning an sickly grey and a toxic brown color due to the skyrocketing levels of air and water pollution, foreign-owned large-scale mining projects, and environmental disasters such as oil spills and mine tailings spills,” Bautista said.

“It’s an empty bluff. How can Pres. Arroyo boast to the world that the Philippines is environmentally-friendly, when her administration approved so many large-scale mining projects that will only bring about ecological destruction and plunder of the country’s national patrimony? When even reports by the Philippine Environment Monitor, a joint report of the World Bank and the DENR, showed that Manila’s poor air quality reuslts in an estimated 4,968 premature deaths annually (accounting for around 12 percent of all deaths in the metropolis) due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases?” Bautista said. ###

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