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Corrupting the environment
CORRUPTION makes environmental destruction possible. The higher the level of corruption in a country, the greater the destruction of the environment; likewise, the lower the level of environmental sustainability. This correlation comes from the World Economic Forum.
There is another correlation: Developing countries highly dependent on extractive industries such as mining, logging and the export of resources show the highest levels of corruption. A few years ago, the WEF, along with Transparency International, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy and other institutions see the Philippines as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Previously ranked as one of a few countries with the most diverse ecosystems, the Philippines is now facing serious environmental issues. Its forest cover is thinning.
Mining and other extractive industries threaten farm life, coastal and marine resources, access to water, and spawn epidemics and pollution of all types. Foreign mining firms have, since the 1970s, plundered mineral resources from the Philippines.
The environment sector is a major source of corruption as well as political patronage. The plunder of natural wealth has been the material base of oligarchic politics that promotes and practices corruption. It is where the most coveted resources are, and it is where the money is.
The large-scale exploitation and extraction of the country’s natural wealth, especially timber and mineral resources, teems with corruption involving bureaucrats, powerful politicians and their cronies, on the one hand, and transnational corporations and their local partners, on the other. Many trans-national corporations whose mining operations have been banned or restricted in other countries because of pollution are willing to shell out bribe money in the Philippines allowing them to invest in mining exploration, extraction, and exportation while evading tight environment evaluation, monitoring, or even litigation.
Corruption has led to the depletion of the country’s natural resources ranging from deforestation, soil erosion, water resource degradation, defertilization, crop damages, siltation, increased water turbidity, and air pollution. All these threaten the country’s food security.
It is the invisible hand of corruption which makes this development aggression more expeditious. It is this same hand that protects profitable ventures, beneficiaries of corruption, and the wanton destruction of the environment at the expense of communities. Corruption makes environment laws unenforceable and violators to get away with their crimes.
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