Nine months ago today, I said yes to an invitation to be part of what I have always envisioned myself to be involved in when I realised I was going to go to law school — environmental law and human rights work. Heartbreaks, frustrations, more than one disappointment, and almost a year later, I still beam at the thought of having listened to the fervent hopes of idealistic, mountaineer, nineteen year old Joy.
And here I am, in the line of fire, what with the precarity of environmental and human rights work in the Philippines, simultaneously inflamed with the burning desire to continue the work.
But that’s not why I write today. Today, and in hopes of having something fondly to look to in the future for when bleak is bleakest, I write about why I do what I do, and why, despite the dangers and the fear, I choose to stay.
Throughout law school, people would ask me what I wanted to do when (if) I become a lawyer. Ever unsure, ever indecisive, I always thought I would never be able to find an answer that would convince myself.
Until I first said, “Environmental and human rights law,” of course. It’s stuck with me since then.
And I have never been more sure of what I want.
But let me speak of a problem first, one more pressing than finding solutions to combat climate change: the refusal to give the oppressed a chance to speak.
Environmentalism has been the rage these days, so to speak. Noses are turned up at the mere mention of plastic straws, sachets are slowly being replaced by reusable mason jars — cuter, sturdier alternatives to plastic waste that eventually find their waste towards the bottom of the sea or, worse, the stomachs of animals living therein; people are switching to plant-based diets, and have since preferred walking, or cycling, or working from home as opposed to driving to offices.
We’ve gone a pretty long way in acknowledging just how much we haven’t been kind to the earth.
We haven’t however, gotten very far in recognising that there is one more group to whom we should pay our respects and include in our advocacies: the marginalised. Under this the poor, the oppressed, the indigenous peoples, the women, the children.
It is the peak, you see, of hypocritical environmentalism to not consider the rights of those most disadvantaged. It is not fighting for environmental rights if it is not fighting for human rights.
If one’s concept of a greener earth is lesser plastics, and one’s approach to a sustainable world is the banning of sachets, then one has to understand that not all can afford metal straws, not all have the luxury of buying things in bulk — because today demands something more urgent: food on the table, medicine for an ailing son, clean water for drinking. The ability to live day by day.
If one’s idea of environmentalism is a plant-based diet or carpooling, completely forgetting that for many, meat and hunky, abhorrent jeeps are cheaper, then one is a warrior for the earth, but not a fighter for its people.
If one looks down on oil and coal, and at the same time refuse to understand the value, and price, of a hard day’s labour, then what is that activism for?
If one speaks in one breath for the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination, and in the other demands their relocation for construction, that still is development.
But development for whom?
Today is Human Rights Day, and in conjunction with the celebration of this important day is a celebration of the things that necessarily go together: human rights, the world over which humans find life, and those who we have pushed further into the periphery because of our greed, or myopia, or a sense of exclusion.
I’ll end this entry with something I co-wrote for today’s celebration:
“Conversations about environmentalism and sustainable development should always put into the limelight simultaneous discussions on human rights, especially those of the marginalised and the oppressed, particularly the indigenous communities. If it were indeed true that only 3,500 hectares in the 9,450-hectare development is buildable, then the Aetas should not have been given ultimatums to leave in the first place. An “inclusive and green city” which pushes further to the periphery the indigenous peoples damages more than it assists, destroys more than it creates, and alienates more than it unites.
It is high time that the BCDA, and the national government in general, genuinely listen to the plight of our first peoples; to consider their opinions and knowledge in the drafting of policies and legislation; to involve them in nation-building. Only then can we say that we are moving towards inclusive, sustainable growth.”
Happy human rights day, and here is a wish, a hope towards a world of inclusion, of depth, of respect to those who know more (or differently), who have lived more (or differently), who have seen more (or differently): I hope in all, in Thee, for us — that growth be within reach, peace be within grasp, life, and the celebration thereof, be within the tips of our fingers, and shared for all for partaking.
Of perpetual finds 