The Philippines is one of 17 countries worldwide with extensive and extraordinary environment and biodiversity. It has 52,177 species of plants and animals, nearly half of which are found exclusively in the country. On the other hand, the Philippines also has the fastest rate of environmental destruction and loss of endangered species from wanton plundering by foreign and local corporations.

Under the US-Marcos regime, the plunder of the country’s environment and natural resources has become more systematic, extensive, and rapid because of the implementation of the Philippine Ecosystem and Natural Capital Accounting System (PENCAS) Act and the Sustainable Forest Land Management Agreement (SFLMA).

Price-tagging the environment

On May 22, 2024, the regime enacted PENCAS, which aims to measure and assign prices to the country’s natural resources. According to the law, the Philippine Statistics Authority will develop a comprehensive information system to measure the value of biodiversity and the stock of the country’s natural resources such as land, forests, water, and air. The United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) will serve as the standard.

Essentially, natural resources that should not be owned or measured in value were given a “price tag” making them saleable to corporations.

Since the early 1990s, the United Nations and World Bank have been pushing the Philippines to develop a natural resource accounting project and its relation to the local economy. This laid the foundation for PENCAS. The law is touted as facilitating environmental protection. Such data supposedly helps formulate scientific plans for managing nature and the national economy.

However, research in other countries that implemented SEEA shows that assigning a price to an invaluable resource only reduces nature’s worth and leads to ineffective and unjust government actions. The data may also be abused to justify environmental destruction as supposedly more economically beneficial.

Sale of forests

The US-Marcos regime is openly marketing for plunder and land grabbing 1.2 million hectares of forest in parts of Davao, Soccsksargen, and Caraga under the SFLMA program. The program launched on June 26 and is monitored by the Forest Management Bureau of DENR. Its goal is to unify eight types of forest use permits into a 25-year land lease program in areas not covered by the National Integrated Protected Areas System.

Individuals, groups, or companies may apply to manage and develop forest areas, such as by establishing plantations, agroforestry, pastures, ecotourism, conservation, and “special” uses such as ports, wood processing, roads, airstrips, dikes, and renewable energy projects. Under the program, individual investors may manage 50 hectares, organizations 1,000 hectares, and companies up to 40,000 hectares of forest.

Foreign companies can also plant trees to supposedly “offset” their environmental damage elsewhere. The DENR is expected to collect user’s fees reaching ₱85,000 per hectare per year or 3% of net income, plus application and other fees.

These measures show that while the US-Marcos regime pretends to be pro-environment, it fully surrenders the country’s natural wealth to local and foreign big comprador bourgeoisie, resulting in harm to millions of indigenous peoples, peasants and people.