To strengthen the coordination between the focal organizations, the pilot sites of struggles (SOS), and the network stakeholders, the anti-mining campaign (AMC) unit of Philippine Misereor Partnership Inc. (PMPI) held its second SOS Conference for 2013 last September 18 to 20.
The conference focused on the importance of local policy change advocacy within the areas of the SOS and understanding the concepts of new environmental rules in the country and the Ruggie framework.
Two discussions were integrated to engage and challenge the participants to pursue local environmental policy change, aside from building their anti-mining constituents.
Rodne Galicha, a former Alyansa Tigil Mina organizer, shared the experience of Romblon in their struggle to craft a provincial environmental code; while Rene Pamplona, advocacy officer of Social Action Center in the Diocese of Marbel, presented their own struggle on the enactment of the said code in South Cotabato and its salient points.
Environmental rules were also explored during the conference.
Kabataan Party-list Representative Terry Ridon tackled the main points on Writ of Kalikasan; while lawyer Ryan Quan of the Ateneo Human Rights Center talked about the guiding principles of Ruggie framework.
Within the conference, a legal clinic, facilitated by Atty. Ipat Luna of Tanggol Kalikasan, was conducted and used the mining issues in Homonhon as a lens in looking the legal issues related to mining. It was also agreed upon that localized legal clinic will be conducted on other SOS.
Local campaign plans of all pilot SOS were presented and reviewed during the conference. The recalibrated AMC program based on the Outcome-Impact Orientation (OIO) was also taken up to streamline the local plans.
