Justice for Quezon and Aurora!

Kalikasan-PNE
PRESS STATEMENT
November 29, 2005

JUSTICE FOR QUEZON AND AURORA NOW!
Stop government policies on continued forest destruction!

One year after the Quezon and Aurora tragedies, the need for justice to its victims has not only been forgotten by the Arroyo government but worst of all has brought more injustices to the people.

The Arroyo government bloodied itself for its culpability in the deaths and human sufferings in Quezon and Aurora last year, yet it is risking further human lives with policies that continue the destruction of the forest.

Large-scale legalized logging is enjoying a resurgence. Corporate legal loggers formed a beeline to Malacanang and they have been amply rewarded, courtesy of a government that awards plunder and immorality, the same jaded values that motivate the Arroyo government.

The resumed logging contract of Sen. Enrile's San Jose Timber Corp., a recent most celebrated case showing this government's utter lack of sensibility and respect for the environment and people's lives, is only the tip of the iceberg. In Gen. Nakar, Quezon, Timberland Forest Products, Inc., a logging company with a cancelled Industrial Forest Management Agreement (IFMA), was reinstated by no less than Malacanang.

Nationwide, even in the landslide devastated areas of Quezon and Aurora, logging companies are back in business. Even before Environment Secretary Michael Defensor lifted a bogus logging moratorium in Aurora-Quezon and other provinces, massive logging by licensed legal and corporate illegal loggers has continued.

Kalikasan-PNE believes the continuing lack of justice in Quezon and Aurora, as well as to all other victims of continuing forest destruction and the disasters this cause, is rooted in forestry policies and practices that regard the forest as sources of government largesse and patronage politics. We believe justice can only be had through the following calls which we vow to fight for:

1. Implement a forestry policy and program that upholds the national patrimony and protect the democratic rights of the people and their access to natural resources.
2. Cancel all large-scale logging concessions granted to corporations and individuals, such as TLA, IFMA, SIFMA, ITPA, SLUA.
3. Stop the issuance of new logging concessions and licenses, most especially in old growth forests and critical ecosystems. Immediately rehabilitate degraded/denuded forests.
4. Provide immediate settlement and livelihood alternatives to families displaced by landslides and flashfloods. Implement rehabilitation of landslide-flashflood affected areas and secure the communities from geohazards.
5. Justice to all victims of the landslide-flashflood tragedies. Conduct investigation on the disbursement of calamity funds and donations to disaster areas.
6. Junk forestry policies that cause untrammeled plunder and destruction of our forest resources.

We are well aware, however, that these calls and demands cannot possibly come to fruition under the immoral, illegitimate and anti-people, anti-environment leadership of the Arroyo government.

We therefore vow even more to wage activities and mass actions to hasten the departure of the Arroyo government.

Only then can we have justice. Only then can the people initiate most urgently needed reforms in the forestry and other environmental sectors.