Vanishing Spaces: Climate Change, Groundwater, Development and the Disappearing Space of Sitio Kinse, Brgy. Taliptip, Bulakan, Bulacan
Apollo Jhunar A. Corral
University of the Philippines Diliman
Apollo Jhunar A. Corral graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Geography from the University of the Philippines Diliman. Interested in cartography and spatial change.
‘Space’ is a relatively overused concept in geography. Being a critical theme in the discipline, questions and dialectics regarding its epistemology and ontology was constantly enclosed with contentions and agreement, obviousness and obscurity as scholars attempt to give it a more pragmatic definition particularly regarding its production and transformation. However, despite its relative abundance in the discourses, rarely has been studied confronting the disappearing socio-physicality of spaces as essential and consequential subjects and realities.
This paper attempts to describe the vanishing spaces through interrogating the inhabitants’ utility, narratives and conceptions of space and governmental interventions; examining satellite imagery; and correlation of prior typhoon and geologic studies. Here, I insist the concept of ‘vanishing spaces’ to signify the loss that translates beyond physical landscape transformations. Selecting the submerged coastal community of Sitio Kinse in Brgy. Taliptip, Bulakan, Bulacan as the site of study, this paper attempts to contend the responsibility of climate change, physical geographical forces, institutional mechanisms and competing spatial notions in connection with political ecology framework in forming and promoting such vanishing spaces. Beyond that, this paper also attempts to situate the futures of this processual disappearing. Such bold statements intend to initiate discussions regarding the rapid spatial shifts and spatio-temporal shrinkage and the reality of landscape and socio-spatial vanishing beyond mere changes especially in this fast-paced globalizing world prevailed by climate crisis.
Between the National and the Global: Climate Justice and the Anti-Debt Movement of the Philippines
Ferth Vandensteen Manaysay
School of Government, Ateneo de Manila University
This presentation examines the framing processes and strategies which have facilitated the incorporation of the vocabularies used within the international climate justice resistance into the national campaigns of the anti-debt movement in the Philippines.
It takes as its case the efforts of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) in explicitly linking the group's grievances to the demands of local and international climate justice activists in seeking for reparations and restitutions not only for the exploitative economic relationship between Northern and Southern countries, but also for the unjust impacts of climate change based on historical contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. An analysis of the Philippine anti-debt movement's policy positions, press statements, and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders reveal that effective mobilization in FDC’s climate justice campaigns requires striking a balance between the movement's focus on bridging formerly unrelated national and global issues, including the cancellation of external debts and the drastic reduction of carbon emissions.
Theoretically, it argues that while it is imperative to delve into the political opportunity structures and mobilization resources of the political process model of social movements, FDC’s use of climate debt to conceptualize their campaigns also highlights the importance of framing contention to connect the freedom-from-debt advocacy with and take advantage of the transnational linkages within the climate justice movement.
Ecological Citizenship: Philippine Based Catholic Green Priest in the Public Square
Patria Gwen M.L. Borcena, M.A.
Greenresearch Environmental Research Group, Inc.
The Philippines is a paradise given its rich biological diversity, but it has also become a hotspot for biodiversity conservation. The country’s fragile ecology has also become a plundered paradise. Moreover, the increasing poverty of the country’s environmental and social landscapes is worsened by a changing global climate. In the Global Climate Risk Index 2020, the Philippines’ Long-Term Climate Risk Index (CRI) ranked 4th among the 10 countries most affected from 1999 to 2018. Empirical evidences indicated that the Philippines is one of the most risk-prone countries in terms of natural hazards.
Since poverty and vulnerability to extreme weather events are the critical social and environmental concerns that need urgent responses, an increasing number of religious leaders and lay groups have publicly stood by environmental groups and taken the cudgels for their partner marginalized sectors over the last decades. This descriptive and exploratory research focuses on Philippine-based Catholic priests who consider being environmentalists, environmental activists/advocates as among their key identity claims.
This paper discusses the Catholic priests’ engagement as environmentalists or environmental advocates who attempt to promote “ecological citizenship” by integrating care for creation with their pastoral duties and/or promoting environmental justice. This paper also identifies the ways in which Laudato si': On the Care for Our Common Home, the environmental and social justice encyclical of Pope Francis, is relevant to some priests and has influenced them. This important development in the Philippine religious sector may well portend an emerging trend in the global Catholic community.