Clergy to voters: Pick ‘green’ bets

SAN PEDRO CITY—A Catholic Church leader in Batangas province has urged voters to elect government leaders whose programs include environmental wellness.

Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles said the church was also planning to release a list, similar to the contents of the controversial “Team Patay, Team Buhay” tarpaulin posters, identifying 2016 candidates with clear environmental programs.

The “Team Patay, Team Buhay” materials were posted by the Diocese of Bacolod in 2013 to identify senatorial candidates who supported or opposed the reproductive heath law, a measure that the Catholic Church opposed for its provisions that supposedly were antilife.

“We are not campaigning for any personality, but rather, we are challenging candidates to include environmental issues in their campaigns,” Arguelles said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

On March 17, more than 1,000 priests from the provinces of Batangas and Quezon, environmentalists, students and volunteers joined a “lakadasal” (prayer walk) from the provincial capitol of Batangas to Lyceum of the Philippines University in Batangas City as they launched the Green Thumb Electoral Campaign in the province.

Green Thumb is a national coalition of environmental groups, among them Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Philippine Movement for Climate Justice and ABS-CBN Lingkod Kapamilya Foundation, that challenges presidential candidates to make the environment a priority in their platforms.

“There was not even a mention [of environmental programs] during the first presidential debate,” Arguelles said.

Church leaders in Batangas have been at the center of an ongoing campaign against the construction of a 600-megawatt coalfired power plant in the province.

The launch of Green Thumb happened on the day business groups in Batangas signed a declaration supporting the government’s efforts to reduce the country’s greenhouse emissions.

Arguelles said they aim to gather 2.5 million signatures in support of the Green Thumb campaign.

“We also campaign against candidates who we think are paid off by interest groups [to allow] mining and coal plants here,” he said.