Seeking a ‘win-win’ outcome

“Puro problema (All problems)” is how Sen. Cynthia Villar describes her stint, so far, in the Senate. She and other newly-minted senators had just taken their seats in the chamber in July when the scam involving the anomalous use of the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund), otherwise known as the “pork barrel,” broke out.

Since then, she says, amid the tensions and allegations of more wrongdoing, the senators and congressional representatives have been forced to be “creative” in finding funds to support their projects and answer the needs of constituents.

For instance, she says, for an upcoming “festival” to showcase the products of various livelihood programs she has helped develop around the country, “we have been forced to turn to the private sector for sponsorships.”

An even bigger problem presents itself with scholars and those seeking help in dealing with illnesses and other emergencies. A congresswoman before she made her Senate run, Villar has had many years’ experience dealing with such requests. A common practice among legislators, she said, is for them to “park” or deposit allotments from their PDAF with government hospitals from which money to finance medical and health procedures and services are drawn.

“But even our money in hospitals has been held by a TRO (temporary restraining order),” she remarks. “Now we have nothing to give.”

During her campaign, Villar says, she promised many communities she visited “livelihood projects” like the ones she had successfully implemented in her home district of Las Piñas. With funding for such projects on hold because of the PDAF issue, Villar says she has been forced to prioritize the areas where she will pour funding. Among these areas are towns and districts vulnerable to flooding because they are near bodies of water, such as Laguna Lake, Liguasan Marsh and Agusan Marsh, which are her three “primary targets.”

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When she was a congresswoman, Villar led in the development of livelihood projects making use of water hyacinths or water lilies, which grow in abundance in bodies of fresh water, impeding the flow of floodwaters from rivers to the ocean, and causing intense flooding.

One product resulting from community projects involving women are banig or woven mats made from water lily stalks. Villar says she successfully negotiated with Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman who promised to buy all the mats her community factories could produce. A “triple strike” is how Soliman supposedly described the arrangement: “You speed up the clearing of water lilies from rivers; you prevent flooding by clearing waterways; and you provide livelihood to poor community women,” says Villar. Besides which, the social welfare department has an urgent need for such mats given the many disasters that regularly visit the country, leaving thousands of families homeless.

It’s a “win-win” approach that Villar says she hopes more officials and communities would adopt given the realities of our environment and climate. “We’re not very conscious of our environment,” she observes, citing policies that aggravate rather than reduce the consequences of climate change and overpopulation.

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This is also the reason Villar is at the forefront of a lengthy and difficult struggle against the planned reclamation of an area around Manila Bay, a 635.14-hectare property which would encroach on the 175-hectare Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area. The area, she says, endangers the lives of residents of Cavite, Parañaque and Las Piñas, who face the threat of severe flooding.

The case was recently decided against Villar’s camp at the Court of Appeals, and she is steeling herself for a continuing battle in the Supreme Court.

Recently, in a privilege speech, Villar took to task the Philippine Reclamation Authority which approved the National Reclamation Program (NRP) covering a total of 102 projects over a total area of 38,272 hectares, including the Manila Bay reclamation plan.

Villar cited the call for a moratorium on reclamation projects under the NRP, which was adopted by the People’s Summit on Reclamation held last year. “They said the NRP was adopted without a genuine stakeholders consultation, in gross violation of the right of citizens to participate in decision-making, without rigorous scientific assessment of the environmental risks and impacts by reclamation projects, and without transparency in concerned government agencies,” she said.

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Aside from the threat of flooding during typhoons or even just record rainfall, the proposed reclamation, says the senator, threatens a “protected habitat” that includes a mangrove forest, a bird sanctuary, a beach, and wetlands.

Villar declares she would like to see the area developed into a “botanical garden” like the one she visited in Singapore, which is proving to be a tourist draw. “And they don’t even have a beach or bird sanctuary, or even mangroves,” she says.

Ironically, the case against the reclamation project has pitted the senator against her older brother, Las Piñas Mayor Vergel Aguilar, who supports it. “All mayors like reclamation,” she declares flatly when asked about her brother’s position. Her position, she explains, is based on her travels around the country and the first-hand consultations she has conducted with communities adversely affected by disaster, as well as by studies, by local and foreign experts, on the impacts of natural disasters here, especially in Metro Manila.

“Always hopeful” is how Villar describes herself, in the fight against the reclamation project, and in the longer fight to mitigate the impact of a changing environment.