by Ricky Jimenez
Let’s revisit some of Davao City’s recently crafted ordinances that have a (major , major) bearing on public health and environment.
The most significant “local green laws” to come out of late are:
• Rainwater Harvesting of 2009
• Aerial Spray Ban
• Marine Protected Areas of 2007
• Anti-smoke Belching
• Watershed Code of 2007
• Water Code of 2001
• Solid Waste Management of 2010
• Comprehensive fisheries Ordinance of 1991
• Septage and Sewerage Management of 2010
• Organic Agriculture of 2010
Seven of the 10 green laws were passed by the immediate past council. Quite an achievement really for the environment committee chaired by Leo Avila III and the whole chamber. It shows sensitivity to health and environment protection, two of the Constitution’s inviolable principles and state principles.They cover practically everything around us: the air, land and sea.
Among the first to notice the last council’s productivity is the SENTRO NG ALTERNATIBONG LINGAP PANLIGAL or SALIGAN, a private, non-profit, legal service organization, active in many a public hearing to craft laws. This, despite their limited manpower and resources, according to SALIGAN lawyer officers Raisa and Mon.
Meeting with representatives of peoples organizations, non-government and civil society groups, including service and resource providers, SALIGAN unveiled what it called “The Davao City People’s Agenda 2010” and lined up what needed to be done for the next three years.
This author was invited as president of Barog Kalikupan Dabaw (BARKADA), a loose coalition of environment-oriented government and private sector offices, schools, POs and NGOs. We listed two items in SALIGAN’s 10-point agenda, relevant to this week’s column: 1.) Implementation of environment-friendly ordinances, and 2.) Enactment of the Davao City Environment Code or DCEC, within the term of the present council (which we helped draft as part of a multi-sectoral initiative in 2007 to 2008).
To die-hard environmentalists, the DCEC is the mother of all green laws, as significant if not as important as the Davao City Comprehensive Development Plan (1996-2021), since it will:
• Codify all environment enactments
• Provide for large-scale mining ban
• Strictly enforce forest regulations
• Conserve environmentally sensitive areas
• Promote use of alternative energy
• Formulate a comprehensive environmental health program, and
• Adopt a sustainable development framework to guide future planning and development processes.
With a newly installed city council, the members chose neophyte councilor Marissa Salvador Abella, a former Hizon barangay captain who has had a good tract record in community waste management, to chair the sensitive environment committee. A beauty queen and daughter of the late respected 2nd district councilor Pedrito Salvador, Marissa is expected by environmentalists to refile the DCEC in the august body and steer passage of the all-important “Mother of all green laws”, with ample peer and public support.
As SALIGAN pointed out, local laws are “only half won” until fully implemented. But first things first. Let’s have a massive public information campaign. This is the ballgame of the executive branch from this point on.
Let’s pick it up from the time Davao City was adjudged one of Asia’s livable cities. It motivates everyone to pursue the quest for wholesome and healthy lifestyle for its people. Example is the regulation of smoking in public places and the use of pyrotechnics which other local government units replicated. In short, we did it before. We can do it again with the local green laws. That is, if we correctly implement them the first time it is done.
It’s time to win the other half of the battle. As an American naval officer ordered his men in defiance of British warships during America’s War of Independence: “Damn the torpedoes, go ahead!”
(email me at rjrjrajimenez@gmail.com)
