Statement on recent landslides

The Archdiocesan Commission on Social Advocacies (COSA) expresses its concern over the recent landslide incident in Sirao, Cebu City. The landslide has caused severe damage and dislocated local residents as the soil in Mt. Kan-irag continues to move. This incident poses grave danger to families living within the affected area.

But beyond the unwanted damages and consequent dislocations lies an undeniable and inconvenient truth brought about by aggressive and exploitative human attitude towards nature: environmental degradation. Through an economic system which views nature as mere means towards selfish ends, the environment has been jeopardized which eventually leads to damaging and even fatal consequences.

Pope Francis expresses concern over this matter when he, in the Laudato Si, deplores that the environment "now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her (LS, 2)." This irresponsible use and abuse include the ever-intensifying drive in Cebu City and the entire province to clear remaining forested areas to pave the development of real estates, golf courses, mining sites, and other commercial establishments in the upland areas. This selfish model of development puts priority on profit over the environment and the welfare of the people.

Yet as the wealth of the richest investors in the aforementioned industries gets higher, nature's invaluable wealth continues not only to deteriorate but, above all, be destroyed. Worse, the people most affected by the escalating destruction are the poor. Indeed, the cry of the earth is the cry of the poor (LS, 49).

With this glaring environmental destruction, the Christian community must commune itself towards the protection of our common home. Being faithful with our ecclesiastical year's theme, we, through the parishes, have to organize ourselves better and condemn practices of large industries that blatantly destroy the environment. We can report to the local media and to COSA any destructive practices against the environment in our very own localities.

Pope Benedict XVI already proposed the need to collectively eliminate "structural causes of the dysfunctions…and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable of ensuring respect for the environment (Caritas in Veritate)." And we must always remember what Pope Francis emphatically expresses that "today…we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor (LS, 49)."

(Sgd.) Rev. Fr. Nazario "Ace" Vocales

Vicar/Executive Director

Archdiocesan Commission on Social Advocacies