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WANTED: LAWYERS FOR ENVIRONMENT
Nov 23, 2005
Updated 10:22pm (Mla time)
Delfin Mallari Jr.
Inquirer News Service
Raul Zapatos, a former forest guard based in Bayugan, Agusan del Sur.
Jose Fabrique, a former police officer in Sibuyan, Romblon. Julio
Versoza, a government forest ranger assigned to guard the Mt. Isarog
Natural Park in Camarines Sur. Rolando Rey Recto, a councilor in
Buenavista, Quezon. They come from different areas of the country
but share life stories of courage as zealous defenders of Mother
Earth’s fragile environment. Because of their commitment, they have
been harassed, coerced and marked for liquidation by people behind
the rape of nature’s wealth in their places. Their stories were told
before participants of a recent three-day Luzon-wide conference on
environmental paralegal and law enforcement in a resort hotel in
Tayabas, Quezon .
More than 90 paralegal, community and law enforcers from the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources narrated experiences
of joy and pain in protecting the environment. The event was
sponsored by Tanggol Kalikasan (Defense of Nature), a public
interest environmental legal defense center, and the Foundation for
the Philippine Environment. It was co-funded by the Ford Foundation
and the Center for International Environmental Law-US Agency for
International Development. “We thought of this conference for
environmental paralegal and law enforcers because of increasing
challenges and problems hurled against them, including cases of
harassment, physical violence, demotion, transfer, marginalization
and the like. Perhaps, we can find solutions to their problems,”
said environmental lawyer Asis Perez, TK executive director.
Perez said some of the problems and issues on environmental
protection had already been identified but his group wanted the
people directly involved to relate their own stories, pains and
woes, and the lessons they learned. “We want to validate our
findings,” he said. The TK, manned by a pool of environmental
lawyers and paralegals, has been operating for 17 years, with
offices in strategic parts of the country. When the participants
began telling their stories, the whole assembly listened.
Behind bars
Zapatos spent four and a half years behind bars for strictly
enforcing anti-illegal logging laws, which led to the killing of
their mayor, Leonardo Cortes, on Jan. 14, 1990. That night,
unidentified men rained bullets on the DENR checkpoint that Zapatos
and other forest guards were manning. Earlier, the group had seized
a truck loaded with illegally cut logs. Zapatos immediately grabbed
an Armalite rifle and fired back at the attackers, not knowing that
he had fatally hit the mayor, the truck owner. His case caught
international attention and he was hailed as another icon of
environmental protection. Environmentalist groups across the globe
campaigned for his release from jail. In September 2003, the Supreme
Court reversed the decision of the Sandiganbayan and set Zapatos
free.
Fabrique used to be with the Sibuyan, Romblon police force, with a
rank of Senior Police Officer 3. “When I arrived in Sibuyan, the
first thing I noticed was the impressive thick forest of Mt.
Giting-Giting. I swore to myself I would protect it,” Fabrique
narrated. He was disappointed when he learned that local officials
and policemen were behind the illegal logging activities in the
mountain. Undaunted by the risk to his safety and profession, he
launched a crusade to strictly enforce environmental laws. “Because
of mounting harassment against me, I refused to report [for work]
and was classified as an Awol (absent without official leave). I was
terminated. But I explained my reason, I filed a complaint and I was
vindicated,” Fabrique said.
Forest ranger
Versoza is a DENR forest ranger assigned to the Mt. Isarog Natural
Park, a vital watershed in Camarines Sur. The area is the source of
drinking water of 15 municipalities and one city and irrigates about
67,400 hectares of farmlands, aside from being the habitat of
several indigenous flora and fauna species. But like other
mountains, Isarog faces problems of slash-and-burn farming, wildlife
hunting, illegal logging and treasure hunting. The perennial hunt
for the fabled Yamashita treasure proved to be the major threat to
the mountain, and Versoza blamed a local judge for some of the
activities. Harassed with lawsuits by the judges, Versoza landed at
the Ocampo municipal jail for robbery charges of spurious
circumstances.
For
Recto, the young municipal councilor, the presence of gold in their
town and his advocacy to prevent the damaging effects of mining to
the environment forced him to live in fear. Recto said he learned
that his enemies had been planning to liquidate him.
Support
According to a TK study conducted by lawyer Ma. Ronely Sheen, the
government has done little to enforce its environmental policy
because of the lack of knowledge of enforcers and the slow judicial
process. The bigger irony is the inadequate legal support for
environmental protectors, volunteers and state workers, the study
said. “Anecdotal information is replete with examples of enforcers
who have been harassed with lawsuits and bodily harmed for enforcing
environmental laws. Also, due to the shortage of lawyers in the
government, these law enforcers are often constrained to hire
private lawyers for their own defense,” the TK report added. The
study found that the failure to prosecute violators was primarily
due to the lack of lawyers in local DENR offices. “Legal assistance
is sometimes limited to affidavit preparation only. No proper
safekeeping of material evidence. Sometimes, evidence is lost in
transit or is stolen while in the custody of the DENR,” it said.
Sheen lamented that the pathetic government attitude toward
implementing environmental laws had resulted in serious
demoralization among the ranks of state environmental protection
enforcers. “They lose their enthusiasm, they feel helpless and
useless. It ruins their credibility. They now have the tendency to
be lax in law enforcement,” she said. Some are totally dismayed and
lose interest in filing or pursuing the case against the violators,
knowing that harassment suits, in return, could deny them
promotions, loans and retirement benefits—aside from being barred
from traveling abroad, Sheen said.
Logistics
Zapatos, who now works as property custodian at the DENR regional
office in Cagayan de Oro City, has learned his lesson. He advised
the department to have a ready and adequate fund to shoulder the
cost of forest protection. “Sad to admit, government support in this
aspect of environmental protection is wanting,” he added. He
lamented that the DENR was not able to assist him in his legal
defense. He was grateful to his co-workers who shelled out money for
his bail. “The rest of my legal defense costs—bail money, lawyer’s
fees, etc.—came from my personal fund,” Zapatos said. “My fellow
rangers were demoralized with the DENR neglect of my case. I was
like a beggar then, asking for every centavo to fund my court
battle,” he recalled. The only financial assistance he received from
the department, according to Zapatos, was a pledge by then
Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez to compensate him P50,000 for
every year of his incarceration. He said he received the allotted
amount for 2001 and 2002 only.
Zapatos also believed that forest rangers must be armed for their
protection. “Without a gun, a forest ranger is an easy target for
intimidation while performing his duty,” he said. He clarified that
the rifle he used in shooting back at the illegal loggers belonged
to an Army soldier who left it in the barracks that fateful night.
Few lawyers
Perez said the inputs of the conference were discussed in a meeting
of lawyers. “We aim to build a network of reputable trial lawyers to
defend environmental defenders who may be threatened or harassed
with court cases for doing their duty as environmental law
enforcers,” he explained. The TK has a pool of only five lawyers, he
said. He estimated that only 20 lawyers were part of the legal
network on environmental protection advocacy in the country. “We
believe that there are more individual practitioners of
environmental lawyering who are not yet part of the network. We
should pull them in,” Perez said.
The DENR has signed a memorandum of agreement with the
Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law and the
TK for the formation of a pool of lawyers who would serve as legal
defenders of government personnel and volunteers who are subjected
to legal harassment for enforcing environmental laws.
The project is called “Defending the Defenders Project.”
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