PUHON: Why care for corals?

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 20 April) – Why is the Holy Week the hottest every year and why is every year the hottest in the last 10 years?

The former is because of the season (which we cannot do anything about) while the latter is due to climate change – which we have everything to do about. 

In the name of progress, the modern world has used more and more fossil fuels to the point of dependence – to bring electricity to every home, to travel more comfortably, to build more cities, tall buildings and concretize everything, cutting down trees by the mountains, hills and plains.

We have consumed more and more of natural resources than we can give back, such that all heat-trapping gases now occupy more of the atmosphere – and nothing of the carbon sinks (forests, mangroves, marshlands) have remained. While we have caused all those gases to go up, we have razed down ecosystems which help regulate the heat and keep nature in balance.

And so here we are, faced with 40 to 45 degree heat (Celsius) in cities across the country (with Cavite at 47C and Los Banos at 50C last week).  

In Davao City, summer class does not feel like a walk in the park but a struggle for open air that feels as sticky and stifling as dough in an oven. Farmers watch their crops wither in real time before the merciless sun. Street vendors and the daily commuter seek shade in patches of shadow that grow smaller and smaller by the hour. Where do the birds go when the last mature trees in the city have been cut? Where does the ordinary Dabawenyo find refuge in an urban concrete fort that has absorbed trapped all heat and radiates heat like an inferno? 

Yet, below the surface, at the bottom of Davao Gulf, a catastrophe is unfolding, in synchronized destruction. Corals that help regulate the heat of oceans, and are literally the rainforests of the sea, suffer not just the heat, but the disturbance and destruction of infrastructure projects like the 23 Billion PhP Samal Island-Davao City Connector (SIDC) Project or Samal Bridge. 

Corals are disintegrating into nothingness: not naturally nor gradually. In 933 days, not even three years of the activities by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) in our waters, we have witnessed exactly what we sacrifice at the altar of so-called development. CRBC is the project contractor of the SIDC Project. They say that the Samal Bridge has been a dream decades in the making, but this particular SIDC/China bridge has been nothing short of a nightmare. 

Two months of “study”^[1] in late 2018 determined its path directly through critical marine ecosystems and marine protected areas in the Gulf. No one representing Davao’s interest was present when they made this decision in Manila. No one asked the fisherfolk in Barangay Hizon if this was a good idea. 

^{Source: SIDC Project EIA Report. Issue 4. 31 July 2020}

In early 2018 , the fisherfolks, who were interviewed by local media, beamed at how they experienced 30% increased fish catch in just five years since Barangay Hizon declared it as marine fish sanctuary in 2013.  

The news anchor then is now an incumbent Davao City Councilor and head of the Environment Committee. One wonders whether he paid attention to the news he was covering. One wonders if he remembered them when as Councilor, he told the media that it has been proven by the Project that what they are doing is within the bounds of the law and ultimately, they in the local government unit cannot do anything in the face of a national project (even when the corals destruction has been reported to them in Council sessions and in many correspondence).

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources regional office (BFAR XI)  as late as 2022 (and on the day of the groundbreaking of the SIDC Project on October 27, 2022) declared at the Joint Committee Hearing by the City Council of Davao, that they were not informed as to the Project and where the bridge is planned to be built on the spawning and nursery grounds of fish. 

There was no real and genuine consultation with local community and local agencies on the actual location of this bridge. Public surveys in May and June 2019 were conducted after the fact and after the site was selected. The audience was not even with the local fisherfolk convened as such. The fact that both sides (Brgy. Hizon and Samal side) are key marine ecosystems are glossed over.  Because of this, here we are, facing a national project pushed down our throats, capitalizing on the decades-dream of a bridge, with no care in the world of where to put that bridge, even if it is on top of corals on both sides of the Gulf.

Why should we care about corals? Why care about the spawning and nursery grounds of fish on which the fish we eat rely on? Why care about the heat regulators of the ocean? Why care about the natural protection from storm surge, at the mouth of Pakiputan Strait (which is prone to storm surge). Why care about the corals upon which the corals and marine productivity of the Sulu-Sulawesi region depend on? 

^{These hard corals were found at the alignment of the bridge approaching the shore of the Lucas property at the Samal side. This is in the neighborhood of the Paradise Reef.}
 

Why should we care about the heat?

Why should we care about our farmers and fishers in this climate emergency? Why care about the nearly 50,000 fisherfolks reliant on Davao Gulf?

Why do we rethink our mobility in the city and push for more walkability and bikeability?                
Why do we need more trees in the city?                                                                                          
Why do we support local and organic agriculture?                                                                         
Why do we switch to renewable energy?                                                                                               
Why do we say no to single-use plastics and go zero waste?                                                        
Why do we care about Pag-asa or Riley? 

Before the Holy Week, social media was flooded by posts on graduation and recognition rites: many things to celebrate with family and community. Posts of our youth, having worked hard and completing their grade levels and degrees. All are hopeful and forward-looking. 

One wonders what kind of future are we really building together when we cut down every tree left in the city (hundreds just for this Samal bridge alone) and every hectare of corals at sea.

Must the road to progress come at the cost of the climate and the children’s future? 

Come November, the world will again gather in the Conference of Parties (COP),  the 30^th meeting since the world community acknowledged that we cannot survive climate change at business-as-usual (BAU). We have caused the problems we face and we will push the solutions together. We said we will because we have had enough of “progress” that has caused disaster. 

That brand of so-called progress that candidates brandish nowadays is passe’ (Yes, dear Samal officials). That notion of progress and convenience you push at the cost of ecology, has spelled disaster for many especially the poor and vulnerable: those who suffer most from flooding, loss of livelihood, periodic and severe hunger.

Why care for corals?

Why don’t you care? 

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Carmela Marie Santos is an environmental practitioner with a background in environmental science and management. She is a licensed environmental planner, a bike commuter and mother of three).

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^[1] The Feasibility Study officially started November 16, 2018. By February 19, 2019 the Stage 1 was concluded with an Options Selection Workshop in Manila. This was presented by DPWH XI head at the November 2022 Joint Committee Hearing with the City Council of Davao. See page 6-7 of Project Feasibility Study showing the three options all affecting the coral reefs in both sides of the Gulf.