In September this year, Masungi Georeserve Foundation bagged the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Action Award, which honors change-makers and initiatives that drive transformative action around the world.
The UN award acknowledges the risks that the Masungi foundation has faced especially in 2022. Such dangers are replicated in other parts of the country, earning it the unenviable reputation of being one of the deadliest places for environmental defenders.
In February, seven Masungi park rangers were assaulted by a group of men believed to be working for resorts illegally constructed in the conservation area. While the park rangers were eating at a canteen, 30 men surrounded their vehicles, hurling a big rock and damaging one of them.
Two rangers were hospitalized after they were mugged. One of the attackers was identified by the foundation as the suspect in a shooting incident where other park rangers were targeted in July last year.
The mauling in February prompted the foundation to make yet another appeal to the government, urging the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to take a “proactive” stand and condemn the violence directed at the Masungi rangers. The DENR regional office in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Rizal and Quezon), however, downplayed the incident and tried to turn the tables on the foundation by alleging that the rangers were carrying arms themselves.
The foundation’s mandate to protect and conserve the 2,700-hectare land around the Masungi Georeserve is covered by its memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the DENR, signed during the term of the late Gina Lopez in 2017. The task would prove to be Herculean with the resort owners and their security contractors constantly testing the foundation’s resolve and the DENR seemingly looking the other way.
In September, some 30 armed men, allegedly belonging to a security agency, encamped along the Marikina-Infanta Highway near the Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape, which is under the foundation’s watch. Police, however, made no arrests despite seizing over a dozen firearms from that group. The authorities did not file any charges, while the DENR sounded “dismissive” of what could have been a violent confrontation, according to Ann Dumaliang, one of the trustees of the foundation.
To assure the foundation members of their security, Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos Jr. later paid a visit to Masungi, bringing along officials from the Philippine National Police and the DENR.
“It’s time for the government to act, so much has been lost and our lives are in danger,” said Masungi foundation president Ben Dumaliang, Ann’s father, venting out his frustration over the DENR’s “negligence” despite the MOA they signed with the agency five years ago.
Despite those tense encounters this year, the foundation perseveres. “Because at the end of the day, despite the disinformation and efforts to undermine our work, we believe that it will speak for itself,” said Billie Dumaliang, Ann’s sister and fellow trustee.
The recent UN award was the 10th accolade to be received by the foundation for protecting the georeserve. Aside from earning international recognition, its work has also been acknowledged and validated by climate advocates around the world.
In November, Ann Dumaliang was invited to speak at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt, where she again shared the foundation’s efforts to protect rainforests, especially the natural resources of the Masungi geopark.
Billie, for her part, voiced out the group’s determination to face the continuing challenges head on.
“We won’t back down. We are holding our ground quite literally,” she said. “(Our efforts) may not be a hundred-percent successful but we are at least achieving baby steps in our work,” she added. INQ
