Statement in reaction to SONA 2025

Fr. Edwin Gariguez, Lead Convenor, Protect VIP says:

It’s disappointing to hear President Marcos peddling natural gas as a clean energy source. Even today, fisherfolk – especially in Batangas, the epicenter of gas expansion in the country – suffer from the destructive impacts of massive natural gas development on their livelihoods and the marine ecosystem. This is particularly true in the Verde Island Passage, known as the “center of the center of marine shorefish biodiversity” in the world.

The plight of the fisherfolk sector is treated as a mere footnote, reduced to a passing mention of fiberglass boat turnovers to fisherfolk associations through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). Meanwhile, urgent concerns for the fishing sector – particularly the Supreme Court ruling on the Fisheries Code of 1998, which declares the exclusivity of 15 kilometers of municipal waters to small-scale fisherfolk unconstitutional – are not even mentioned. Fishing families bewail this decision as commercial fishing corporations encroach on the very source of their livelihood.

Notably absent was any meaningful reflection on the first major environmental crisis of his administration, the 2023 oil spill in Mindoro. To date, no concrete action to stop fossil fuel and toxic cargo pollution in our seas has been put forward.

The President’s reduction of the climate crisis into calls for individual discipline to “dispose waste properly” and vague motherly statements about “bayanihan” and “pagtutulungan” is a shameful relinquishing by the administration of its responsibilities in confronting the impacts of the climate crisis, and in building the resilience of vulnerable communities and ecosystems.

Protect VIP, driven by the fisherfolk communities most affected by this crisis, has consistently reminded the President that fossil fuel operations are at its very root. Yet these calls seem to have fallen on deaf ears – which is not surprising given that the corporate heads who profit most from fossil fuel operations were seated as guests of honor in his SONA. ###