Critique Paper

In the May 2017 the Inquirer news published a press conference entitle “Business interests
prevail over people’s welfare”, environmental secretary Gina Lopez stated that one-third of the
Filipinos depends on their natural resources. In addition, if the environment is still destroying
that the poor Filipinos suffering that undeniably depicts in our society, also she mentioned the
responsibility of the government to protect the environment and people’s welfare. However, if
the government are based on the business interest, they have lost the moral ascendancy to rule
the government because money is more important than the welfare of the people, as she said.
Evident from the very succinct statement in the press conference, this press conference from an
experienced perspective of the environmentalist secretary of Department of Natural Resource
(DENR). The speaker was attempting to send a direct message regarding to environmental
issues and people’s welfare to the reality situation facing by Filipinos both citizen and
government. This critique paper aims to determine the interrelationship of the citizen and
government towards the environmental issues that has become a major problem in this
generation nowadays.

The Philippines has been truly blessed. Surrounding its 7500+ islands are the oceans and seas
where the richest most biodiverse marine environments thrive, creating virtual factories of fish
and aquatic resources. “The Philippines is located within the coral triangle, at the center of the
highest marine diversity. Its vast, rich and diverse coastal and marine resources are composed
of coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangrove and beach forests, fisheries, invertebrates, seaweeds,
marine mammals and many others. This shown that the Philippines is the home of variety of
species including coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangrove and beach forests, fisheries,
invertebrates, seaweeds, and many more. However,” Antonio M. Claparols, President of the
Ecological Society of the Philippines, reported on the destruction of the South China Seas coral
colonies by China in 2016. There lies the environmental linkage and interdependency.

The other countries like China and Indonesia are huge countries with massive populations.
Ironically, on paper the Philippines has the best environmental protection laws in the world. As a
2013 policy paper on Philippine solid waste practices states, “Human activities contribute
significantly in waste management. For marine resources our Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998
expressly bans aquatic pollution. While not always readily apparent, we cannot ignore that
climate change is happening in the Philippines. Therefore, having the best environment
protection law throughout the countries without ineffective implementation can rather cause a
corruption, anomalies, and other illegal practices in different institutions or government officials
that contrarily against our constitution.

As a manifestation of the country’s commitment to engage in multilateral efforts aiming to

address the global problem of climate change and achieve sustainable development, the
Philippines has participated in the discussions and negotiations leading to the ratification of
various international agreements. These international agreements are geared towards the
mitigation of the effects of climate change and the strategic adaptation to the conditions. The
most important outcomes of these negotiations include the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ratified on August 2, 1994 and the Kyoto Protocol,
which was ratified on November 20, 2003. As one of the first countries to sign the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, the Philippines expressed
adherence to the principles of sustainable development and environmental preservation based
on the notion of equity and the unique capabilities of the participating countries. Although the
effort of the government to provide counter measures in environmental issues is progressing,
the Philippines suffers major human-caused environmental degradation aggravated by a high
annual population growth rate, including loss of agricultural lands, deforestation, soil erosion, air
and water pollution, improper disposal of solid and toxic wastes, loss of coral reefs,
mismanagement and abuse of coastal resources, and overfishing. Mo Climate change impacts
on coastal zones and marine ecosystems caused massive coral bleaching especially in 1998
due to elevated sea temperature and fish kills and red tides like the one that occurred in 1992
which was an El Nino period. Scientists warned the Philippines could experience famine by
2020, as the adverse impact of global warming takes its toll on natural resources. In addition,
the Philippines is suffering from degradation of the natural environment. A hundred years ago,
the Philippines had close to 22 million hectares of old growth forest. But, in 2001, 49 of the
nation's mammal species, 86 bird species, and 320 plant species were threatened with
extinction. This research data provided by previous researches are very alarming because
throughout the year these variety of species survival rate decreasing through human activities
that has been result to the extinction and decreasing population of variety species. Endangered
species in the Philippines include the monkey-eating eagle, Philippine tarsier, tamaraw, four
species of turtle (green sea, hawksbill, olive ridley, and leatherback), Philippines crocodile,
sinarapan, and two species of butterflies. Moreover, the Philippines is looming with garbage
problems despite the passage of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act or the Republic
Act (RA) 9003. About 1,000 open and controlled dump sites exist in the country.

The issues of the environment have directly affected on the lives of people across the world.
Failure to control environmental issues can lead to catastrophic situation. These include:
extinction of species, variety of pollutions, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and even death.
Failure to adequately address the issue could have devastating effects on human services.
Natural catastrophes are huge burden on the man-power and financial resources of service
agencies. In addition, there could be a tremendous loss of life for individuals throughout the
world.

The author of this critique paper uses critical approach such as formalist criticism. Formalist
criticism is an approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge that need to
be examined on its own term. A primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such
elements work together with the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers. In such case,
this approach is suitable in the current situation wherein this article aims to determine the
interrelationship of the citizen and government interaction towards environmental issues.
This critique paper discusses in detail the problem and implementation of the government to its
territory. From a comparative result of implementation over the problem, this shows despite of
the government effort for the implementation over its citizen the problem arises in their own
constituents that causes so much environmental issues. Consistent with both welfare and
addressing the environmental issues, people’s participation is a continuing issue in attempt to
influence environmental awareness and responsibility so that all persons are involved in the
protecting and conserving the environment together with the people’s welfare.

Overall, I found that Gina Lopez statement regards to the interrelationship between the people
and the government towards environmental issues is quite interesting. The press conference
gave a substantial amount of data, and included some very sensitive issues. However, it was
obvious that the press conference was publish to express one point of view. As a critical thinker,
I was disappointed that more facts were not included so that the viewers could form an objective
opinion. Every author or speaker promote their own agenda; however, this critique paper could
have been greatly enhanced by discussing sides of the issue, and giving the reader an
opportunity to decide for herself/himself.