Corruption and climate (in)justice (2)
Our first study on the intersections of climate change events and conflict demonstrated that communities that are prone to armed violence and at the same time are impoverished suffer much more during incidents of intermittent armed conflict.
In the two provinces of Maguindanao (del Norte and del Sur), economically marginalized communities narrated to us how flooding, which is usually brought about by typhoons, has made their lives even more miserable than they already were. Compounding their dire situation are the on-and-off incidents of communal violence, when warring political clans contest each other for positions in the local government units (municipal and provincial levels). They reported to us several instances when both armed conflict and heavy rains occurred. During these episodes, they had to find means to evacuate as floodwaters rose, making sure that they were not caught in the crossfire of warring families shooting at each other.
Many rural communities in the two provinces are among the most impoverished in the region and the most food insecure, even without any disaster happening. These are communities ruled by political clans that have entrenched themselves in different positions in the provincial and municipal governments over several generations of their families.
Datu Piang, the oldest municipality in the then undivided Maguindanao province, is among the poorest in the province. Some of its barangays, even in the town center, or población, have no access to safe drinking water through faucets that go directly to their homes. Drinking water is sold through a water delivery system, and people still use the old-style water pumps from wells they have dug on their own. (This was the same situation I witnessed while doing fieldwork research for my master’s thesis in anthropology in 1978, more than four decades ago!)
Indicators of bad governance and corruption in local government management are quite palpable in that town, which used to be the center of Magindanawan culture and progress in the 1950s.
So when disasters happen—both human-induced and those brought about by climate change events—impoverished families are pushed further into a more dire situation. It is hard enough to escape from rising floodwaters; it becomes even more threatening when they have to evade stray bullets while seeing their houses and livelihoods destroyed by strong winds and floods.
Respondents in the two studies we conducted from 2021 to 2023 also reported problems related to the distribution of assistance (“ayuda”) to community members. The distribution of ayuda was fraught with a lot of irregularities, with respondents reporting that barangay officials dictated who got more of the ayuda—usually their relatives, at the expense of those who needed the assistance most.
The second study showed how corrupt practices in the past have led to massive devastation—destroying both lives and livelihoods—among a community of indigenous peoples in the coastal barangay of Kusiong in the municipality of Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao del Sur. This was the community severely battered by Severe Tropical Storm “Paeng” (international name: Nalgae) in October 2022.
Those who died—more than 60 of them—were members of the Teduray-Lambangian community, indigenous peoples inhabiting several mountainous barangays in three municipalities in the province. They were buried alive by muddy floodwaters, assorted debris, and huge rocks from Mount Minandar.
In the 1970s, a logging company of the Consunji family, a crony of former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., started logging operations in the area. Current political leaders of the town are also reported to have been mining the mountain for gravel for the construction of their seaside resorts in Kusiong.
Our study exposed a reality among vulnerable communities that are the first to suffer when disasters strike. They are the ones who get buried in muddy floodwaters, largely the victims of the adverse consequences of rapacious logging in the past. This is injustice based on the abuse of the environment, made more devastating by typhoons and flooding.
Such consequences of climate change could have been mitigated, or even prevented, if mountains were not deprived of forest cover due to rapacious logging by corporate entities. Rich owners of these companies were reportedly given access by their close friends in the government to exploit forest resources, not minding the devastating effects of their actions in the future.
Ironically, some of them were the heads of regulatory bodies, like the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, that are mandated to safeguard the environment, especially our dwindling forest resources.
This is climate injustice due to corruption.
—————-
Comments to rcguiam@gmail.com
