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NEWS RELEASEApril 19, 2007 Kalikasan condemns attack on journalist Kalikasan-Peoples Network for the Environment today condemned the assassination attempt against Philippine Daily Inquirer Southern Luzon correspondent Delfin Mallari, Jr., saying that the Arroyo administration was doing nothing to prevent human rights violations against journalists and environmental activists. "Ironically, Mallari even wrote an article last November 2006 on the extrajudicial killings of at least eighteen environmental activists affiliated with Kalikasan PNE ("Loss of 18 green activists mourned", published on Page A14 of the November 2, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer). The victims were killed all under the administration of Gloria Arroyo from January 2001 to September 2006. Mallari has also consistently wrote about different environmental issues, including mining, biodiversity, environmental protection, and rights of marginalized sectors such as fisherfolks and national minorities. He's not only a good and professional media practitioner but a genuine environmental advocate," Kalikasan PNE National Coordinator Clemente Bautista Jr said.
NEWS RELEASEApril 19, 2007 Filipino poor to suffer the most from brownouts, extreme heat by climate change Environmental activist group Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) today warned that the recent incidents of extreme heat and Napocor power shortages affecting Luzon were just the beginning of more climate change-related phenomena that would affect the Filipino poor the most. Temperatures recently hit 36.8 degrees Centigrade, which PAGASA recorded the hottest temperatures in the Philippines for this year and which triggered scattered brownouts due to the sudden surge in power demands. The weather forecasting agency also warned that extreme heat spells would persist until next month.
NEWS RApril 18, 2007 Environmental activists urge leading candidates: Curb climate change by protecting Philippine forests National and district-level candidates and partylists in the 2007 elections should lay the foundation for managing extreme weather conditions expected to result from climate change by immediately supporting an urgent moratorium on commercial logging operations rampant in the Philippines, Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) said today. "There are many significant ways to contribute to the international campaign against global warming, and instituting an urgent commercial logging moratorium in the Philippines is one of them," Kalikasan PNE National Coordinator Clemente Bautista, Jr. said.
NEWS RELEASEApril 14, 2007 Probe on $6 million DENR Air Monitoring Network Project sought
Re-electionist administration solon involved Environmental activists today urged a government probe on a $6 million air pollution monitoring project between the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and a private joint venture, expressing grave concern over highly-questionable transactions and suspicious actions of senior government officials, including DENR Secretary Angelo Reyes and a prominent administration congressman. In a press conference held this morning by Kalikasan Peoples' Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE), environmental activists Clemente Bautista, Jr. and Joey Papa of Bangon Kalikasan Movement presented a complaint sent to the Office of the Ombudsman regarding the DENR's Ambient Air Network Project, which involved the setting up, maintenance, and operation of ten (10) air monitoring stations meant to measure ambient air (or air outside and surrounding an air pollution source location) and pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, ozone, particulate matter and total suspended solids. The contract, amounting to US$6,163,000.00, was awarded to a joint venture between Emissions Technology Inc., a Guam-based company, and its local partner Industromach Inc. (ETI-IMACH) on November 2002. However, on February 14, 2005, IMACH officially withdrew from its partnership with the ETI, citing as reasons the ETI's misrepresentation with regards to its expertise in ambient air monitoring, its use of unreliable equipment, unilateral deviation of contract obligations, project management conflicts, overcharging local expatriate and local personnel rates, and non-payment of IMACH's project operation and maintenance expenditures. On November 2004, the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) recommended that the payments for the project's operations and maintenance by suspended in light of the contractors failure to complete the rehabilitation and improvement of all ten stations and to address nagging technical and legal issues. On October 17, 2006, the EMB and the DENR's legal departments recommended to Sec. Reyes the termination of the contract. Despite the suspension of payments and recommendations to end the contract, the DENR has agreed to continue with its transactions with ETI. Last December 13, 2006, the DENR and the ETI, through a meeting with Sec. Reyes, agreed to pay to ETI more than $1,117,864.13 million worth of unsettled billings and to possibly extend the project for another year. These incidents prompted IMACH Managing Director Eduardo L. Mendoza to send a complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman. Mendoza argued that the terms of the latest agreement were highly prejudicial to the government. "Setting aside my company's interest in this transaction...I have decided to come out and expose the truth about the Ambient Air Project in the hope that those liable would be held to account for their actions and participations", Mendoza wrote. (Please refer to the letter of Industromach Incorporated dated 16 March 2007 and the briefer prepared by Kalikasan PNE). "This transaction should merit a full-blown investigation by the [Office of the Ombudsman] involving as it does the payment of millions of dollars allocated for that component of a loan package extended by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) under its Clean Air Program as well as the highly suspicious actions of senior officials of the DENR and the participation of a prominent member of the Lower House of Congress," Mendoza wrote in a complaint received by the General Investigation Bureau-A of the Office of the Ombudsman on March 21, 2007. The solon referred to by Mendoza is administration Cong.Edcel C. Lagman, representing the 1st district of Albay and currently running for a second term. Lagman previously served as legal representative for ETI-IMACH during the start of the project and has received amounts of $60,000, $63,255, $100,000, $40,000 and $100,000 on various dates from 2002 to 2003, representing his initial lawyer's fee, his success fee for the awarding of the contract, and the last three amounts as partial payment for marketing expenses, respectively. After his election to the House of Representatives during the 2004 national elections, Cong. Lagman continued to personally attend meetings related to the project in 2005 despite his active participation in two impeachment proceedings in Congress, even stating that it was his intention to mediate between the ETI and EMB on the financial issues of the contract. He even requested the EMB to convey his concern to the DENR top maangement and to pay what is due to ETI before the budget hearing started in October 2005, Bautista noted. "These actions of Cong. Lagman betray his real interest in arguing against the termination of the [project] and securing for ETI this highly prejudicial agreement with the DENR," Mendoza said.
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