|
| Special Report, March 2006 |
|
From the JPIC Office Special Report From The Philippines After the devastating landslide in the Philippines in mid-February, we received a reflection from Columban Father Shay Cullen. We share with you his thoughts on the real cause of the natural disaster.
Don’t blame God for landslides, To feel the pain and terrible evil that the corruption of government and the greed of rich loggers visit upon the poor of the Philippines just try to imagine a million tons of rocks and mud burying you or your family in an instant. One minute you are happily joining a meeting with your neighbors at home or in the school then in an instant, you are plunged into a dark dungeon of death. The sound of the roof crashing and collapsing around you is terrifying. There are cries and screams and then silence. The weak moan of a few begging for help nearby tells you some are still alive in the dark. The metal creaks and only moments remain before you are to be crushed to death by a hundred tons of rocks and dirt. You are saved temporally by the steel frame of the school roof. All you have is your cell phone, its weak light shows there is still a signal but also how impossible is your plight. Yes, you weep uncontrollably and punch out a last message, a plea for help, a faint hope and send the text message as one teacher did to her supervisor as she lay dying, the oxygen running out. “Ma’am, we are still under the school. Please help us Ma’am. This is Edilio Coquilla. Please Ma’am.” Then begging to be saved, you die. Don’t blame God nature or fortune. Blame those who had the power to cut the trees and plant the coconuts. There is now a vanished village of Guinsagon outside the town of St. Bernard, Leyte. The hundreds buried alive, ten meters below, breathed their last and expired and no one could reach them. Rescue teams rushed to this remote place and they were astounded. It looked like half the mountain had avalanched down to bury the entire population. There were at least 300 children and their teachers in the school. About a hundred women were at a meeting to discuss the future of their village. Little did they know that it was to be no more. Housewives were preparing the next meal and then it happened. The earth moved, the mountain shook and the rain soaked soil had nothing to hold it back. The deep rooted trees had long been logged out. Nature had been raped, abused and left lying prone to the typhoons and torrential rain that is the climatic lot of this central part of the archipelago. Without nature’s network of roots, and rocks disaster was inevitable. The almost rootless coconut trees planted by other wealthy families to exploit the denuded earth were no match for the massive rainfall, the weight of soil and rock and the pull of gravity. The coconut trees were sitting on what was after three weeks of continual rain a soaked sponge. They aggravated the soil with their huge palms and single trunks swaying and acting like levers in the wind prying loose the soil and stones. Then the swirling spinning rotation of the earth, and the massive pull of gravity it generates, brought down the land in a great avalanche of death and destruction sweeping away and burying everything in its path. No structure could withstand this massive force; it was nature unleashed. But not by any act of God but so clearly the inevitable result of acts of avarice and greed, human plunder and the pernicious abuse of power. The local people who rushed to the scene saw nothing but a sea of black mud and rocks into which they sunk with every step, the mud sucking and dragging them down. Above the dark clouds were threatening to unleash even more torrents of water. Only a few were pulled free, faint hearted with fright. Dozens of landslides kill hundreds of people every year all over the Philippines as the direct result of rampant uncontrolled logging and mining activities. Most are never reported. The day after the destruction of Guinsagon, ten people were buried alive in the remote village of Depore in Bayog, Zamboanga del Sur, a half kilometer for the mining site of the Canadian TVI Pacific. Don’t blame an act of nature, a climatic event, the hand of God. Blame rests is for those who gain their greedy goals of abundant wealth and sumptuous living while the poor wade and wallow in the mud slides of poverty and hardship. The Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the politicians and its officials, support by issuing logging permits and licenses to their friends and relatives, crooks and cronies, have to answer for the death of many. Environmentalists have incontrovertible video evidence that the cutting of old forest rainforest trees is rampant around the Philippines. It is not God that allowed this suffering and loss of precious life but those powers and the pen to sing away the heritage of the nation and bury it with the victims of their contagious corruption. Economic Justice As we begin the season of Lent, we share with you an exciting projected that our friends at Lutheran World Relief have endorsed that could bring a message of environmental and economic justice to Palm Sunday. ECO-PALMS: Make social and environmental justice part of your parish's Palm Sunday celebration The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the King of Israel!” (John 12:12-13) Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem was accented by the jubilant waving of palm branches is re-enacted each Palm Sunday in Lutheran and other Christian congregations worldwide as our observance of Holy Week begins.
Unfortunately, for the communities where these palms are harvested, palm fronds do not always represent the same jubilation they do for us.
Environment Typically, palm harvesting is done by community members hired by large floral export firms. Payment is based on volume so the harvesters are motivated to gather a large number of palms, without regard for the quality. As a result, up to 50% of the palms are later discarded because of poor quality. This method risks the rapid depletion of the forest's rich biodiversity, including the many bird species that migrate to these regions during the winter.
Communities
A Better Way to Harvest Palms Called eco-palms, the palms are harvested in a more sustainable way, whereby the harvesters are paid on the quality of the palms they harvest rather than the quantity, which helps to limit the amount of palms taken from the forest. These communities have taken upon themselves to learn about harvesting practices that minimize impact on the natural forest where the palm grows, and ways to protect this wild species of palm. In fact, in Guatemala, the palm harvesters have received SmartWood certification from the Rainforest Alliance, a “seal of approval” that ensures consumers that the wood products they purchase come from forests managed to conserve biodiversity and support local communities. In some areas, where the waste ratio reached as high as 50% before, now the discarded palms count for only 5-7% of the harvested volume. Also, rather than sending the harvested palms off to a distant warehouse for sorting and packaging, the community members complete those tasks themselves and sell their palms directly rather than relying on middlemen—ensuring that more of the money paid for the palms actually goes to those who worked the hardest to provide them. When done in a socially and environmentally just way, palm gathering can actually protect valuable natural forests. Steady markets for palm prevent the forest from being destroyed for other uses. Eco-palms protect the unique and important biodiversity of the region and maintain the local communities’ standard of living.
The Eco-Palm Project: Your Role in Supporting Social and Environmental Justice Lutheran World Relief is partnering with the Chamaedorea Palm Certification Project to help build support in the U.S. for eco-palms by introducing Lutheran parishes to this social and environmental justice project. The Palm Certification Project is an effort of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation and the University of Minnesota Center for Integrated Natural Resources and Agricultural Management to develop a certification program for palms that will ensure the palm harvesters are earning a fair income for their labor, and the palms are being harvested in an environmentally sustainable way.
How to Participate in the Eco-Palm Project Are you not in the area of availability but are still interested? Special shipping arrangements may be possible to other areas for an additional charge. E-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for information. Are you not able to participate this year, but are interested for Palm Sunday 2007? For a form to indicate your interest go to www.lwr.org/palms/PalmOrderForm.doc and submit via fax to 612-625-5212 or by e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Knowing other regions of the country where interest in purchasing the palms is high will help plan distribution methods for future years. Migration As the national debate on immigration reform takes the spotlight in the United States, Columban Father Bobby Gilmore of Ireland reminds of the importance of welcoming the stranger. Immigrants: All They Need is a Welcome The immigrants were without any deep consciousness of the role they were playing. They did not dream of history or see themselves as part of history. They partook of a mythology of the place to which they were going, but of the place they know little indeed. These are the opening words in the Howard Fast novel “The Immigrants.” Immigration was never a popular subject because it implied separation, loss and change. Both the immigrant and those at home are left with memories. There always was the hope of return but for many seldom realized, and for those who did return to what they thought was home wasn’t home and the readjustment was almost as difficult as going away. Those left behind didn’t understand the experience of the immigrant, and the immigrant probably didn't fully grasp that those left behind experienced similar loneliness and isolation. Unless experiences were shared both sides in the immigration saga would really never be part of each other’s journey. Ultimately, immigration is the human heart on a journey of hope. In the early 1960s, my younger brother left home unannounced. His sudden departure left a gap in the house and in our lives. My parents were distraught. A few days later a postcard arrived informing us that he was on his way to New Zealand. As we talked about his departure, my mother was able to look at a positive side of things. Holding the postcard she said, “Well he is young, healthy, he has a trade, he works, and the neighbors tell me he attends church, so all he needs is a welcome!”
He got a welcome at the Franciscan Church in Wellington. A teenager himself, he met another teenager, Kathy, from Australia, who came to New Zealand for the summer to pick fruit. They fell in love, settled in Wellington, and raised a family of four. Kathy died of cancer last year. Her first grandchild was born the previous year. Again, without a welcome they do not feel valued. They are made to feel the exclusion that drives immigrants into ghettos to form their own churches, where they are assured of a safe social, welcoming environment. Maybe my mother was right: all they need is a welcome! The history of salvation has known unpredictable and mysterious integration of peoples, cultures and races. In the future, too, we want to remain open to the plan of God, whose “providence, evident goodness and saving designs extend to all people against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city which is illumined by the glory of God, and in whose splendor all people will walk.” (Nostra aetate, 1) (Cardinal Mario Martini. 1991) Action Alert From the USCCB Justice for Immigrants Campaign: The legislative action on immigration reform has now turned to the U.S. Senate. Over the next few days, the Senate Judiciary Committee will be “marking up” legislative proposals. The Judiciary Committee Chairman, Arlen Specter (R-PA), introduced his “Chairman’s Mark” (The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006) on February 24. It is critically important to actively engage the Senate at this time. Your senators need to hear from you that only comprehensive legislation will fix the ills of the current system and that an enforcement-only approach is ineffective and unacceptable. Click here for more information and to contact your senator: www.justiceforimmigrants.org/action.html Contact Us
We welcome submissions, comments and suggestions. |