Well this lawyer does not deserve to be tied with a rock and cast into the sea. :-) He is defending the sea, most specifically the seas surrounding the Visayan islands.
I have worked with Antonio “Tony” Oposa Jr on several environmental concerns. I was pleased to learn that he was given a prestiguous laurel, that is being elected to the board of trustees of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Washington DC.
Tony Oposa is best known for winning a case in the Philippine Supreme Court that is now considered legal doctrine in many jurisdictions all over the world. This case “Minors Oposa vs Department of Environment and Natural Resources” established as a legal principle the ethical principle of intergenerational equity. My layman’s take on this is that the young and unborn can sue for their rights to a good environment. Lately Mr Oposa has won another case at the Supreme Court when it ordered the government to clean up Manila Bay. Tony Oposa also inspired other lawyers to take on environmental cases. One of these is Ms Golly Ramos, whom I met in Cebu before. Golly Ramos is a law professor in the University of Cebu and specialises in environmental law, women’s and family law.
Oposa’s efforts has led the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) to create committees in the national and regional chapters to deal with environmental cases.
Oposa’s and Ramos’ work brings environmental law from the idealist and quixotic realm (as one of my ex students and now a budding environmental lawyer put it) to the forefront of legal practice. Hopefully, their work may inspire law students to go into environmental law.
Well we need more lawyers that need not be cast into the sea with a heavy rock tied to their legs!
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WoW! Oposa a Cebuano? I take Blackshama is also a Cebuano. Is Oposa involved in blocking oil exploratory drilling in Tanon Strait to protect dolphin's habitat?
What is your stance on oil drilling in Tanon Strait? My stance is to go ahead with oil exploratory drilling with extreme care of the environment, not totally stop it. It can be done with latest technology nowadays. If we it is found of its potential, sorry dolphins, they have to swim someplace else to save our children.
We have to choose. Either make our children extinct or the dolphins. Anyways, it's always the tisoys and tisays who gets to watch the dolphins swim by
Read my earlier posts. I AM NOT FROM CEBU. But like Cebuanos we believe my ancestral region has a sort of national identity.
FYI, there is not much hydrocarbons in the Tanon Strait. Pinoys will never be extinct since according to Jessica Zafra, they have practically the Earth in their hands.. As extinctions go Canadians may go first followed by United States Americans, and so on and the Indians and Chinese will dominate the planet. :-)
Not Canada dahil ang dami nang bagong dating na Pilipino dito. In fact, ang daming bagong Filipino restaurants and stores being opened here. Filipinos are one of the fastest growing ethnic group in Canada. Everywhere you go pinupuri ang hard-working Filipinos dito.
I hope that when they drill, that all safeguards should be put in place and if they violate, severe penalty should be meted out to the violators. In fact they should collect a refundable deposit towards the penalty before granting permission to drill.
Second class citizens nga talaga ang mga Fil-Am sa US. Biruin mo nag-import pa ng purong Filipino para gawing member ng Board of Trustee nila. Matawagan nga si second class citizen Cristeta para ipagluto si Tony ng adobo. Pakitanong mo nga Blackshama kung gusto niya ng driver. Available kasi si second class citizen Major General Taguba (ret. US Army). May asawa ba yan? Magandang gumawa ng lingerie si second class citizen Josie Natori. Baka malibre nga kasi first class itong si Tony according to you. Kung magagawi siya ng Manhattan eh tawagan niya lang si second class citizen Loida Nicolas. Pwede syang ilibot non sakay ng Bentley para di na siya mag-subway. Masarap din magtimpla ng kape yan.
Unfortunately you carry the neocolonial angst of the Filipino in the United States. What Fil-Ams should be concerned with FIRST is to make sure the United States is a kinder country to its migrants . Filipinos in the United States should start with their own communities. As someone who has lived in the southern United States, I know we have a lot of work to do in that department. BTW I don't need a driver when I am in the USA or in the countries I have visited or lived in. I take public transport most of the time.
Filipinotown in Los Angeles has only 15% Filipinos in this rundown, drug-infested community. If there are Filipino establishments it's always hole-in-the-wall carenderia. Filipinos congregate in communities but never talk. They snob each other who has the bestest Corollas in town.
America is kinder to migrants than Filipinos with their fellow brown-punked-nose brothers in my dear Philippines. I'd rather be discriminated by whites than by my Filipino brothers hands-down. Mas masakit kung ang nag-discriminate sa akin ang kapwa Pilifino.
Blackshama "takes public transport most of the time". This dude is a strict greenie-tree-hugging-extreme activist.
Neocolonial angst? The US not kind to immigrants? Di ka siguro nag-succeed dito. Mahina ka pala.
Apologies for no imbed-photo of HOR.
interesting: there is an article online saying that Minors.. VS Factora case by the SC didn't revoke the TLA, but merely said, the lower court cannot dismiss.
but since Oposa didn't pursue the case, then nothing happened…
why didn't Oposa pursue?
the link to the analysis:http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/1056296-1.html
i'm not saying i agree with the analysis, haven't even read it. i'm just wondering why they didn't pursue the case to the end…
blasckshama: has any Philippine timber license agreements been cancelled, or did Oposa just get himself into the newspapers (… and then onward to a job in Washington DC)?
When Oposa becomes a (second-class) US citizen, also open to him will be to run for US Congress or US Senate on a platform of saving the Chesapeake Bay.
That's if he takes on the American Dream. You better send him an email.
I suggest you go to Dover and Wilimington and ask if any Delawarean about saving Chesapeake Bay
Let us save Filipins from Filipinos first. The greatest threat of the Philippines is not denegration of environment but from bigoted-racist-Eskinol-white-hugging FlipPinos.
Tingin ko walang pakialam ang mga taga-Delaware sa Chesapeake Bay kasi may Delaware Bay naman sila. Maliban lang kung ibigay ng Maryland o Virginia ang portion nila ng Delmarva peninsula sa Delaware.
because the issue at stake, the fact that there were only 800,000 hectares left of virgin forests in the philippines which were the subject of the case in the first place, had become moot. during the process of litigation, in 1992, the logging concessions in the remaining virgin forests were cancelled and the forests were declared national parks per the Rep Act 7586. (Protected areas law)
Environmentalism is a covert oppression by developed countries on poor nations. Very subtle.
Like CIA used religion to subjugate the minds of FlipPinos during the time of Marcos …
Renato,
So are you implying that you are a CIA agent who has undergone the training ala "The Recruit" with Al Pacino in lead role?
I thought at one point or other, you were saying, you didn't not even graduate from high school but at another turn, you claim to have graduated from La Salle (was it you?).
I may not be surprised if sometimes you are just actually hallucinating due to the drugs you take in. And whenever you are not at peace – you chant the same old hymn – down with "pekeng peryodista"!!!
I know you're crazy but we all love you around but of course, moderate the insults.
Yep! I said I was from La Salle but I wasn't. Yep, I said I didn't graduate High school but I did. It was just for effect to get attention so they'd follow my post … :)
Really, Primer, according to one of the very few reliable columnist during the early days of Inquirer, his name escaped me, said that the rise of religious fundamentalism in the Philippines was due to covert CIA operation during Marcos time to remain in Subic and Clark. He seems to be very reliable because at that time my only source of information was from our own newspapers. There was no Internet at that time yet. But I still do believe religion was used by the US Government. That was the time when this phrase "It's better for a poor man to pass thru the eye of the needle than a rich man" to pacificy the poor, downtrodden and the oppressed their place in heaven …
That was not the US government trying to oppress the Filipinos with "…eye of the needle" blahh-blahh-blahhh…. "eye of the needle" are words by the Iglesia Ni Kristo, the Baptists, and the Catholics and the Aglipayans! [ Aetas do not have such a saying... but even if they do, no one listens to an Aeta. Must be their nose geometry. ]
And Renato, you better patent this technique of "lying to get attention". It is so brand new that surely, no Pinoy peryodista or blogger does that at all.
blackshama,
Can we not propose a "Technology Bill of Rights"?
That alone, at least in part, may address certain environmental concerns.
What is your take on this?
I doubt if ever we can strike a balance between development and environment. China supplied us and America with cheap imitation products while trashing their environment. They the hughest damn in the world and sacrificed environment. Now, Filipinos envy China. Filipinos even go to China to be their servants and slaves.
Environmentalism here, in the Philippines, is elitist. By the way, whatever happened to suit against San Miguel in Mandaue City, Cebu against foul odor coming out of their brewery? San Miguel won. Money won. Employment won. And San Miguel talks environmentalism. Environmentalism is for the wealthy to preserve places they want to go that no one else can afford.
Anyone can afford to go to Palawan? Anyone wealthy enough to watch the Dolphins swim by? Not me, not you. Only the katsilas from Aboitiz to Zobel and Intsiks in-between
FipPinos go to China to inhale their polluted air and drink dirty water so the Philippines can be preserved and stay pristine as showcase of environmentalism.
I hate to see foreigners come to Philippines oggling at us from air-conditioned buses like we were a bunch of monkeys in the savannah of Africa in their jungle sojourn.
We should all protect the Planet Earth. We think that Polution in distant lands will not affect us. Look at
climate change is doing to us. The Planet is now in danger from the Pollution and other harms it receives
from men.
The weather will become more violent, Natural Calamities will surely increase, and the Polar Ice will continue
to melt. As we denude our forests. We will have more floods. If You Tinker with Mother Nature. Mother Nature
will have a Way of Fighting You Back.
It's America that trashed the environment. Ask your former president Bush. And we, poor countries, get to save the environment. Hmmmpfffff!
Dang, dude! My medication is working. I'm kind of mellowed down. My englischtzes is almost perfect and my spelling is impeccable. Let me see … what I got here … I'm not telling but it sure is a strong stuff :)
generally, i'm uncomfortable with the notion that judges will decide how states take advantage of natural resources nationwide.
i am in favor of using courts to settle local disputes in the use of natural resources. that seems reasonable. but state-wide policies? i dunno…