In one breath: we spent the week of July 27 – August 2 watching our country's natural resources caught between fragile recoveries and unresolved costs, with the most heartbreaking story saved for last.
Roundup:
Angat Dam clawed up four meters from its historic low of 150.61m, but by August 2 it had already slipped by 0.35m again. While not a full reversal, it is a chilling reminder of how thin the margin still is. The P7.32/L diesel price hike on July 28 was followed by a P12.94/L rollback on August 4, which is reflective of the global oil market rather than any resolutions happening at home. Meanwhile, the government is pushing to remove electric grid inefficiency ("system loss") charges currently billed to us consumers — but who absorbs that cost instead still hasn't been answered. Distributors, generators, or the national budget? And what are the implications?
[Ripple story of the implications here: Link to follow]
[Mainstream] ABS-CBN / Manila Bulletin / Inquirer / Rappler / MotoPinas / ABS-CBN ◦ [Research & Data] PAGASA / Napocor / NDRRMC / DOE press briefing, July 28
Indigenous leaders and environmental advocates pressed the government to strengthen ancestral domain safeguards and fund community-led conservation, arguing that existing land tenure protections are already the most effective forest defense in place. Ancestral domains "encompass about 85 percent of the Philippines' Key Biodiversity Areas and 75 percent of its remaining forest cover," according to the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC).
[Mainstream] ABS-CBN ◦ [Research & Data] Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC)
The government deferred its fish import order to the closed fishing season, giving our fisherfolk a short reprieve from fish imports undercutting the price of their catch. An El Niño-lengthened season is keeping catches steadier for now — but that just delays the shortfall rather than solving it, since imports and shrinking catches are both still coming.
Separately, police cracked down on illegal fishing gear in Western Visayas (₱3.6M seized, 18 individuals arrested). Note: our country's 2025 catch hit its lowest level in two decades, enforcement is catching individual violators which does very little to reverse the structural decline, and the systemic causes haven’t been reversed.
[Mainstream] Philstar ◦ [Research & Data] DA Department Circular No. 12
On the mining side, MGB raided small-scale illegal miners in Surigao, seizing ₱9.5M in equipment — the very groups DENR said in mid-July are usually just stuck in a broken permitting system, not criminals.
The raids are removing the people who couldn't navigate a broken system, while the larger-scale, permitted mining operations — which carry far greater cumulative environmental footprint (deforestation, tailings, water contamination) — continue operating under existing "responsible mining" frameworks that remain contested by affected communities.
The enforcement optics of these crackdown successes mask that the structural harm to the ecology mostly comes from a different, legal tier of both industries that isn't being raided at all.
[Roots & ripples of “responsible mining”: Link to follow]
[Mainstream] Philippine-Resources.com / Tribune ◦ [Research & Data] MGB Region XIII / Philippine-Resources.com (DENR Sec. Cuna remarks)
The most heartbreaking story this week: a divided local council vote is being used to unlock a nickel mining permit on Sibuyan Island — after the Supreme Court already denied residents' last legal challenge in February, closing that avenue of the fight for good. Sibuyan, touted as the "Galapagos of Asia," holds an entire ecosystem that is endemic and irreplaceable, "one of the country's most important biodiversity hotspots." A council vote is now the only thing standing between Sibuyan and Altai's planned mining activities.
[Mainstream] Rappler / Inquirer / Khaleej Times ◦ [Research & Data] Philippine-Resources.com / BusinessWorld / Alyansa Tigil Mina
What are ‘roots’ and ‘ripples’?
As thinking beings, we are constantly asking questions to piece together the context whatever it is we are reading and possible implications of certain actions. Roots and ripples pages are exactly that. Roots = context, ripples = possible implications.
At the moment, the links are greyed out as we figure out the best way to display all the information so they are accessible and not overwhelming.
Thank you for being patient, and most importantly, thank you for being here.
