The Prob­lem and Its Setting

This chap­ter con­sists of ten sec­tions. The first sec­tion begins with the state­ment about the Earth as our home and our moral task to save this home sus­tain­ably; sadly today’s lifestyle and erro­neous val­ues are con­tin­u­ously cre­at­ing our home unsus­tain­ably. Our own Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag serves as a con­di­tion for inte­grat­ing the prin­ci­ples, val­ues, and prac­tices of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and har­mo­niz­ing sus­tain­able rela­tion­ships essen­tial in mak­ing deci­sions to live sus­tain­ably on day to day basis. The sec­ond sec­tion presents its eth­i­cal option as nec­es­sary to live sus­tain­ably on Earth in the con­text of the eco­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion; thus it is inevitable to fur­ther inves­ti­gate through hermeneu­tic phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal inquiry the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag, its mean­ing, ped­a­gog­i­cal char­ac­ter and rel­e­vance to jus­tice, peace and integrity of cre­ation.  The third sec­tion refers to the con­text of the study con­tain­ing the global and local poli­cies on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (SD) from 1992 to 2009. On the one hand, the global con­text con­sists mainly of the two global con­fer­ences on SD namely, the 1992 Earth Sum­mit and the 2002 Earth Sum­mit.  On the other hand, the local con­text com­prises the 1992 Philip­pine Agenda 21 (PA 21) and the 2009 Enhanced Philip­pine Agenda 21 (EPA 21). The fourth sec­tion enu­mer­ates a series of state­ments on the global cri­sis:  that this is a deep spir­i­tual cri­sis of the mean­ing­less­ness of life (State­ment of the con­sul­ta­tion on african and asian spir­i­tu­al­ity, 1993, p. 6); that our self­ish­ness and greed exploited God’s cre­ation (Ortho­dox per­spec­tive on cre­ation, 1987, par. 45); and that life-giving rela­tion­ships are turned into death-dealing ones (Wessinger, 1993). All these dom­i­na­tion and exploita­tion are dis­con­nect­ing us from our indige­nous roots, dis­in­te­grat­ing our cul­tural belief sys­tems and mak­ing the essen­tial social struc­tures fall apart.  Based on the above dec­la­ra­tions, the writer con­duct­ing this study has con­sid­ered Thomas Berry’s viable solu­tions deriv­ing from which three (3) broad but mutu­ally inter­de­pen­dent per­spec­tives and direc­tions assur­ing us a sus­tain­able earth com­mu­nity and recon­nect­ing us with our indige­nous roots, namely com­pli­men­tary unity as cosmic-anthropological, cos­mic rela­tion­al­ity as holis­tic and stew­ard­ship respon­si­bil­ity as ped­a­gog­i­cal. Lag­dameo (2009) bor­rowed Einstein’s words in affirm­ing the global cri­sis: “We will not solve the prob­lems of the world from the same level of think­ing we were at when we cre­ated them” Bil­lions are presently at risk of dying from star­va­tion and dis­ease, Lag­dameo (2009) asserts that we will not solve our prob­lems [today] — reli­gious, social, eco­nomic, polit­i­cal, and eco­log­i­cal — by insist­ing on doing the same things that have pro­duced these prob­lems. The next two sec­tions include the state­ment of the prob­lem and the research ques­tions. The for­mer states that this study is an interpretation-description process (explo­ration, analy­sis, reflec­tion and syn­the­sis [EARS]) [1] of the nakakaluwag lived-experiences in view of a holis­tic rela­tion­al­ity rooted in people’s shared-beliefs and shared-practices both cosmic-anthropologically ori­ented and ped­a­gog­i­cally viable. The lat­ter enu­mer­ates the three (3) research ques­tions, first, on the sig­nif­i­cance of nakakaluwag lived-experiences; sec­ond, on its ped­a­gog­i­cal impli­ca­tions for sus­tain­able liv­ing; and lastly, on find­ing a com­mon ground for an approach to liv­ing sus­tain­ably. The sev­enth sec­tion indi­cates the scope and lim­i­ta­tions of the study focus­ing on the inter­pre­ta­tion of the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag lived-experiences in view of the four­fold rela­tion­al­ity and also iden­ti­fy­ing, ana­lyz­ing and assess­ing the implied ped­a­gogy for sus­tain­able liv­ing based from the lived-experiences of the four­teen (14) pur­posely selected co-researchers (Co-Rs)[2] who are the multi-sectoral rep­re­sen­ta­tives of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB). The eight sec­tion shows the time-table for this study from the month of Feb­ru­ary, 2010 until the month of March, 2011. This time-table describes the writer’s activ­i­ties and tasks being done while con­duct­ing the study and it also indi­cates the expected com­ple­tion of the said activ­i­ties. The ninth sec­tion is the sig­nif­i­cance of the study, which claims that the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag is a unique cul­tural fea­ture that con­tributes to the global ethic [uni­ver­sal value] for sus­tain­able liv­ing. Its find­ings and results are sig­nif­i­cant in four ways: First, the writer may draw upon this Fil­ipino cul­tural resource new insight into edu­ca­tion and research for a sus­tain­able liv­ing. Sec­ond, the inte­gra­tion of the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag with other Fil­ipino beliefs and prac­tices may intro­duce an alter­na­tive ped­a­gog­i­cal frame for sus­tain­able liv­ing. Third, the writer may pro­pose val­ues re-orientation or for­ma­tion pro­gram for sus­tain­able liv­ing. And finally, the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag may fur­ther unravel the mean­ings of these two val­ues — eco­log­i­cal and social jus­tice (eco-justice) — that we Fil­ipinos firmly have upheld. Lastly, the final sec­tion is the def­i­n­i­tion of terms which are used in this study. The detailed out­line of all the sec­tions and sub-sections of this chap­ter is as follow:

Chap­ter 1: The Prob­lem and Its Setting

A.    Back­ground of the Study

B. Objec­tive of the Study

1. The Eco­log­i­cal Revolution.

2. Join­ing the Eco­log­i­cal Revolution

C. Con­text of the Study

1. Global Context

1.1 1992 Earth Summit

1.2 2002 Earth Summit

2. Local Context

2.1 1992 Philip­pine Agenda 21 (PA 21)

2.2 2009 Enhanced Philip­pine Agenda 21 (EPA 21)

D. Moti­va­tion to Con­duct the Study

E. State­ment of the Problem

G. The Research Questions

H. Scope and Lim­i­ta­tions of the Study

I. Research Time-Table

J. Sig­nif­i­cance of the Study

K. Def­i­n­i­tion of Terms 

Back­ground of the Study

“Earth, our home, is alive with a unique com­mu­nity life.[3]” “We are one human fam­ily and one Earth com­mu­nity with a com­mon des­tiny. We must join together to bring forth a sus­tain­able global soci­ety founded on respect for nature, uni­ver­sal human rights, eco­nomic jus­tice, and a cul­ture of peace.[4]” To bring these eth­i­cal val­ues to life and to find a work­able solu­tion that is mutu­ally agree­able to all appear to be a daunt­ing task. Unfor­tu­nately, the 2009 United Nations Edu­ca­tional, Sci­en­tific and Cul­tural Orga­ni­za­tion (UNESCO) World Con­fer­ence on Edu­ca­tion for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment[5] (ESD) declares:

Unsus­tain­able pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion pat­terns are cre­at­ing eco­log­i­cal impacts that com­pro­mise the options of cur­rent and future gen­er­a­tions and the sus­tain­abil­ity of life on Earth.… The world faces sub­stan­tial, com­plex and inter­linked devel­op­ment and lifestyle chal­lenges… The chal­lenges arise from val­ues that have cre­ated unsus­tain­able soci­eties.[6]

This dec­la­ra­tion reaf­firms the state­ment of Japan­ese Senior Vice-Minister for Edu­ca­tion, Cul­ture, Sports, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy Toshio Kojima (2005) who contends:

By requir­ing us, indi­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively, to make dif­fi­cult choices about how we live, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment is an eth­i­cal and moral chal­lenge…. ESD should help us to address this chal­lenge. Through ESD, we should acquire a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the com­plex inter­de­pen­dence between human needs and the nat­ural envi­ron­ment, between eco­nom­ics and cul­ture, and between the local and the global (p. 17).

Both Bonn Dec­la­ra­tion and Kojima’s con­tention are fur­ther chal­lenged by Paul Hawken’s (2009) com­mence­ment mes­sage addressed to the grad­u­at­ing class of 2009 of the Uni­ver­sity of Portland:

You are going to have to fig­ure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every liv­ing sys­tem is declin­ing, and the rate of decline is accel­er­at­ing. —For­get that this task of planet-saving is not pos­si­ble in the time required. Don’t be put off by peo­ple who know what is not pos­si­ble. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impos­si­ble only after you are done (pars. 2 & 4).

How­ever, the First GEO-5 Multi-Stakeholders Con­sul­ta­tion held in Nairobi, Kenya, March 29–31, 2010 even admits that:

Since the 1992 Earth Sum­mit in Rio de Janeiro, global, regional and national con­cern for envi­ron­men­tal and devel­op­men­tal issues has increased. This has led to an exten­sive range of inter­na­tion­ally agreed envi­ron­men­tal and devel­op­ment goals. How­ever, progress towards meet­ing these has in many cases, been slow (no. 7)[7].

The above dec­la­ra­tions and admis­sions are dis­ap­point­ing, depress­ing and alarm­ing. In fact as early as 1991, these eco­log­i­cal and eth­i­cal con­cerns have been reit­er­ated by Pope John Paul II in his encycli­cal Cen­tes­imus Annus[8]:

At the root of the sense­less destruc­tion of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment lies an anthro­po­log­i­cal error, which unfor­tu­nately is wide­spread in our day. Man, who dis­cov­ers his capac­ity to trans­form and in a cer­tain sense cre­ate the world through his own work, for­gets that this is always based on God’s prior and orig­i­nal gift of the things that are. Man thinks that he can make arbi­trary use of the earth, sub­ject­ing it with­out restraint to his will, as though it did not have its own req­ui­sites and a prior God-given pur­pose (n. 37).

Address­ing this anthro­po­log­i­cal error that brought about eco­log­i­cal and eth­i­cal prob­lems, John Cairns, Jr. (2003) in his paper, ‘Inte­grat­ing Top-down/Bottom-up Sus­tain­abil­ity Strate­gies: An Eth­i­cal Chal­lenge,’ puts for­ward, “There must be a global strat­egy for sus­tain­abil­ity (top-down strat­egy) but also a strat­egy that con­sid­ers the unique issues and ecosys­tems of each biore­gion (bottom-up strat­egy).  —Both top-down and bottom-up sus­tain­abil­ity strate­gies will require syn­the­sis…. Again, ethics [or val­ues] should be a major fac­tor in the deci­sion mak­ing process” (pp. 45 & 47).

To expound on these two con­trast­ing ori­en­ta­tions, each approach is described in the sub­se­quent dis­cus­sion. Sev­eral iden­ti­fied orga­ni­za­tions, agen­cies, insti­tu­tions and indi­vid­u­als are pre­sented below that adopted either top-down or the bottom-up approaches as a modal­ity for an appro­pri­ate edu­ca­tion, train­ing and pub­lic aware­ness for pro­tect­ing, con­serv­ing and enhanc­ing our global envi­ron­ment in the inter­ests and for the ben­e­fits of both present and future gen­er­a­tions[9].

Giv­ing seri­ous weight to the crit­i­cal role of ethics, as stated above by the 2009 Bonn Dec­la­ra­tion and 1991 Cen­tes­imus Annus, like­wise Cairns, J.’s rec­om­men­da­tions are also con­gru­ent with the obser­va­tion of Sis­ter Mar­jorie Keenan, RSHM (1992) who claims that, “While we address the symp­toms of the eco­log­i­cal cri­sis by the means at our dis­posal —edu­ca­tion, legal mea­sures, inter­na­tional coop­er­a­tion— we must not for­get that the root of the prob­lem is else­where:  on the level of faith, on the level of ethics (par. 30). Like­wise, Chowdhry (2002) pointed out that Eliz­a­beth Dowdeswell, a for­mer Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of UN’s Envi­ron­ment Pro­gram (UNEP), com­mented on the sus­tain­abil­ity debate. She said, “ulti­mately sus­tain­able con­sump­tion is not a sci­en­tific or a tech­ni­cal ques­tion, that it really is first and fore­most a ques­tion of val­ues” (p. 3). More­over, Rabbi Denise L. Eger (2007) said in his Jew­ish New Year’s ser­mon, “for the Earth’s envi­ron­men­tal woes are not only envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ters, it is symp­to­matic of a deep spir­i­tual crisis.”

Con­vinced that ethics may fur­nish a com­mon ground[10] (or middle-in or mid­dle level approach) where diver­sity can be appre­ci­ated and not divi­sive, Cairns, J. (refer­ring to Küng’s[11] def­i­n­i­tion, 1998) defines:

a com­pre­hen­sive ethic—founded on the bedrock of mutual respect and humane treat­ment of all beings—that would encom­pass the eco­log­i­cal, legal, tech­no­log­i­cal, and social pat­terns that are reshap­ing civ­i­liza­tion. If humans are going to have a global econ­omy, a global media, a global tech­nol­ogy, Küng argues that there must also be global ethics to which all nations and peo­ples of the most var­ied back­grounds and beliefs can com­mit them­selves. Earth can and should be held together by ethics (p. 5).

Like­wise, UNESCO as the lead agency behind the United Nations Decade of Edu­ca­tion for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (DESD, 2005–2014) finds a com­mon ground (or middle-in or mid­dle level approach) through the inte­gra­tion of:

the prin­ci­ples, val­ues, and prac­tices of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment into all aspects of edu­ca­tion and learn­ing, in order to address the social, eco­nomic, cul­tural and envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems we face in the 21st cen­tury (Edu­ca­tion for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, 2010).

In con­sid­er­a­tion of the premises above, should ethics [or val­ues] be sought in sus­tain­able devel­op­ment as an essen­tial fac­tor in mak­ing and imple­ment­ing deci­sions in day to day prac­tices? Should the world adhere, in gen­eral, to a global ethics [or uni­ver­sal val­ues] as the com­mon ground where top-down and bottom-up approaches to sus­tain­able liv­ing reach syn­the­sis? And for the pur­pose of this study, should every Fil­ipino advance one step fur­ther, in par­tic­u­lar, to take a sec­ond look on the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag[12] as both the locus and con­text of the Fil­ipino value of pakikipagkapwa (the prin­ci­ple of Fil­ipino rela­tion­al­ity), which is a sine qua non of inte­grat­ing and har­mo­niz­ing one’s sus­tain­able rela­tion­ships (1) with fel­low human beings, (2) with herself/himself, (3) with nature (cre­ation) and (4) ulti­mately with God?

Objec­tive of the Study

1. The Eco­log­i­cal Revolution

Neal Pargman (2003), pres­i­dent and founder of The Save the Earth Foun­da­tion, states, “Today more than ever we must acknowl­edge the fact that a great many envi­ron­men­tal vio­la­tions of the past con­tinue to haunt us in the present.” Now, here is the good news: Hawken (2009) pro­claims, “What I want you to imag­ine is that col­lec­tively human­ity is evinc­ing a deep innate wis­dom in com­ing together to heal the wounds and insults of the past” (par. 11).  These words encap­su­late what he intends to con­vey in his hope­ful book, enti­tled, ‘Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Move­ment in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Com­ing.’  Also in his web­site, www.blessedunrest.com, it says that orga­ni­za­tions that are ded­i­cated to restor­ing the envi­ron­ment and fos­ter­ing social jus­tice are:

col­lec­tively comprise[d] the largest move­ment on earth, a move­ment that has no name, leader, or loca­tion, and that has gone largely ignored by politi­cians and the media. Like nature itself, it is orga­niz­ing from the bot­tom up, in every city, town, and cul­ture. And is emerg­ing to be an extra­or­di­nary and cre­ative expres­sion of people’s needs world­wide (par. 2).

It’s too late to be a pes­simist. In the face of mis­ery and suf­fer­ing, mil­lions of NGOs prove that sol­i­dar­ity [rela­tion­al­ity] between peo­ples is stronger than the self­ish­ness of nations. Thus, every­one, from rich­est to poor­est, can make a con­tri­bu­tion (Arthus-Bertrand, 2009). As Hawken (2009) pointed out, “Inspi­ra­tion is not gar­nered from the lita­nies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s will­ing­ness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimag­ine, and recon­sider” (par. 7).

2. Join­ing the Eco­log­i­cal Revolution

Accord­ing to Hes­sel (1996) as he cited Larry Rasmussen:

We are now enter­ing the human world’s fourth great rev­o­lu­tion. The first three were the agri­cul­tural, the indus­trial, and the infor­ma­tion rev­o­lu­tions. The fourth great social rev­o­lu­tion must now come to pass, for survival’s sake. It is the eco­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion…. [And since]…the great strug­gle for humane sur­vival in a sus­tain­able earth has already begun. So choose to reform… (pp. 4–5).

In the sub­se­quent dis­cus­sion, the writer[13] rec­og­nizes and acknowl­edges, in par­tic­u­lar, these compassion-driven peo­ples of Earth who are com­mit­ted to live sus­tain­ably because they are all con­vinced that it is both an eth­i­cal option and a neces­sity to live sus­tain­ably on Earth, Arthus-Bertrand, 2009; Braudis, 2006; Cairns, J., 2003; Hawken, 2009; Pargman, 2003 and Ramirez, 2009.

As peo­ples of Earth, we have to rec­og­nize, in gen­eral, all of them, and acknowl­edge all the efforts of “all car­ing per­sons, of all faiths, of all eth­nic­i­ties, of all tra­di­tions, of all nations, who take respon­si­bil­ity, for try­ing to make changes to improve the per­ilous con­di­tions of humankind, work­ing together to fos­ter under­stand­ing among the diverse peo­ples of the world” (Lam­ont, 2007 ). Hence, the writer joins the eco­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion with the fol­low­ing research objec­tives[14] in mind for the present study:

1.  fur­ther inves­ti­gate through hermeneu­tic phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal inquiry on how Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag: 1.1 pro­vides con­di­tions con­ducive[15] to live sus­tain­ably in view of holis­tic rela­tion­al­ity and 1.2 fur­nishes com­mon ped­a­gog­i­cal ground where top-down and bottom-up approaches to sus­tain­able liv­ing reach synthesis;

2. intro­duce the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag in view of holis­tic rela­tion­al­ity as a pedagogically-oriented frame for a sus­tain­able liv­ing; and

3. pro­pose sus­tain­abil­ity ini­tia­tives towards jus­tice, peace and integrity of cre­ation in view of the above frame.

Con­text of the Study

1. Global Context

1.1 1992 Earth Summit

The achieve­ment of the United Nations Con­fer­ence on the Envi­ron­ment (UNCE) held in Stock­holm, Swe­den, June 5–16, 1972, was the estab­lish­ment of United Nations Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­gram (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya.  Although it took human­ity twenty years to pre­pare for a global con­fer­ence on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (SD) known as the United Nations Con­fer­ence on Envi­ron­ment and Devel­op­ment (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 2–14, 1992, nonethe­less the so-called 1992 Earth Sum­mit “was a mile­stone in the cre­ation of con­sen­sus on the com­plex inter-linkages between envi­ron­ment and devel­op­ment” (Corell & Susskind, 2000).

The 1992 Earth Sum­mit pro­duced the United Nations Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UNFCCC), an inter­na­tional envi­ron­men­tal treaty engaged in sus­tain­able reform with an ulti­mate objec­tive of achieving:

Sta­bi­liza­tion of green­house gas (GHG) con­cen­tra­tions in the atmos­phere at a level that would pre­vent dan­ger­ous anthro­pogenic inter­fer­ence with the cli­mate sys­tem. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame suf­fi­cient to allow ecosys­tems to adapt nat­u­rally to cli­mate change, to ensure that food pro­duc­tion is not threat­ened and to enable eco­nomic devel­op­ment to pro­ceed in a sus­tain­able man­ner (UNFCCC, Arti­cle 2).

On August 2005, the “UNFCCC had 197 State Par­ties, mak­ing it one of the most universally-supported mul­ti­lat­eral envi­ron­men­tal agree­ments” (Global agree­ments, 2008). Linked to UNFCCC is an inter­na­tional agree­ment known as the Kyoto Pro­to­col (Kyoto, Japan, Decem­ber 11, 1997), which com­mits 37 indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries and the Euro­pean com­mu­nity aimed at fight­ing global warm­ing by reduc­ing GHG emis­sions (Unfccc kyoto pro­to­col, 1997).  While 169 coun­tries have rat­i­fied the agree­ment, Aus­tralia and USA refused to rat­ify it until Decem­ber of 2007. It came into force with Russia’s rat­i­fi­ca­tion on Feb­ru­ary 16, 2005 (Bloch, 2007). This agree­ment which expires on 2012 urgently needs for a new cli­mate pro­to­col (Edge & Adam, 2009).

Based on the Prin­ci­ples of the 1992 Earth Sum­mit, it was agreed that envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and social and eco­nomic devel­op­ment are fun­da­men­tal to SD and to achieve such devel­op­ment, world lead­ers adopted a global pro­gramme enti­tled Agenda 21 (The united nations today, 2008). Agenda 21, the world’s blue­print on SD, is con­sid­ered an unprece­dented global plan of action for SD. But the best strate­gies are only as good as their imple­men­ta­tion (Basic Infor­ma­tion: What is johan­nes­burg sum­mit 2002?, 2006). In Rio we had good ideas, good vision, and good dreams but were not suc­cess­ful in ignit­ing action (Chowdhry, 2002). The nego­ti­a­tions lead­ing up to Johan­nes­burg had not pro­vided any rea­son to expect dra­matic break-throughs, and there were none (French, 2002 ). The decade between Rio and Johan­nes­burg has seen the almost com­plete fail­ure of Rio, its Dec­la­ra­tion and its Agenda 21 to pro­duce mean­ing­ful results (French, 2002 ). Although lit­tle for­ward move­ment was dis­cern­able on the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment agenda in the decade fol­low­ing Rio, this does not mean that the world stood still (French, 2002 ). But then again, over the course of 10 long years,

Chowdry (2002) enu­mer­ated his dis­ap­point­ments with UN for not doing stronger mea­sures to put into effect Rio’s goal:

We have had ten years of expe­ri­ence to real­ize what has gone wrong in our attempts to move towards ‘sus­tain­abil­ity’. We have had ten years of var­i­ous nego­ti­a­tions to reduce envi­ron­men­tal dam­age; ten years of address­ing poverty issues with­out much suc­cess; ten years of increas­ingly unsus­tain­able busi­nesses; and ten years of ever more increas­ing con­sump­tion. What have we learnt in these ten years so that in Johan­nes­burg we can focus on rel­e­vant issues and move for­ward in accept­ing what it takes to har­mo­nize present devel­op­ment with the future of the world (p. 2).

In Nel­son Mandela’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy, ‘Long Walk to Free­dom,’ he wrote: “Rhetoric is not impor­tant. Actions are.” After thirty years, since the 1972 Stock­holm Con­fer­ence, “our legacy to our chil­dren will [now] depend on whether more com­pan­ions will join the long walk to sus­tain­abil­ity” (Earth sum­mit calls for action, not just rhetoric, 2002).

1.2 2002 Earth Summit

The World Sum­mit of Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (WSSD) or  2002 Earth Sum­mit held in Johan­nes­burg, South Africa, August 24-September 4, 2002 presents an excit­ing oppor­tu­nity for today’s lead­ers to adopt con­crete steps and iden­tify quan­tifi­able tar­gets for bet­ter imple­ment­ing Agenda 21 (Basic Infor­ma­tion: What is johan­nes­burg sum­mit 2002?, 2006). In a nut­shell, Peo­ple, Planet and Pros­per­ity are the catch­words of Johan­nes­burg. These words cap­tured the three dimen­sions of SD — an inte­gra­tion of social equity, envi­ron­men­tal qual­ity and eco­nomic growth for the ben­e­fit of this and future gen­er­a­tions (Earth sum­mit calls for action, not just rhetoric, 2002). Johan­nes­burg is dif­fer­ent because of ‘part­ner­ship ini­tia­tives’ and it is hoped that these ini­tia­tives will ensure that the tar­gets agreed to in Johan­nes­burg are met (French, 2002 ). On the con­trary, Beck­er­man (2002) insists that what­ever fine, ring­ing pro­nounce­ments did emerge from Johan­nes­burg; they are doomed to fail­ure because the scope for inter­na­tional action to improve respect for basic human rights in the many coun­tries where they are vio­lated is lim­ited (par. 9). This would sim­ply mean that the task is becom­ing ever more urgent as the human costs of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and social despair con­tinue to mount (French, 2002 ).

The 2009 United Nations Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence, also known as the Copen­hagen Sum­mit held in Copen­hagen, Den­mark, Decem­ber 7–18, 2009 adopted a dec­la­ra­tion, which accord­ing to Müller (2010):

The main out­come of the sum­mit, which was held in par­al­lel to the Copen­hagen Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence and attended by over 110 heads of gov­ern­ment and state, was the ‘Copen­hagen Accord’. It was drafted in the final 24 hours of the con­fer­ence by twenty-odd lead­ers con­vened by the Dan­ish Prime Min­is­ter as ‘Friends of the Chair’. The Accord con­tains 12 para­graphs in just over two pages. (p. 5).

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admit­ted the Accord “can­not be every­thing that every­one hoped for, but it is an essen­tial begin­ning” (Feiner, 2009). Todd D. Stern, US Spe­cial Envoy for Cli­mate Change, said that the Accord “is a very impor­tant step for­ward” (Fis­cher, 2010).  “It is a chal­lenge to see how they could come back in a year and make seri­ous, legally-binding 2-degree com­mit­ments” (Spratt & Law­son, 2009).

The Accord is say­ing that to pre­vent GHG emis­sions sig­nif­i­cantly impact­ing the global cli­mate[16] through tem­per­a­ture rise, deep cuts in global emis­sions are required accord­ing to sci­ence as soon as pos­si­ble that the increase in global tem­per­a­ture should be below 2°C (Spratt & Law­son, 2009).

How­ever, the nego­ti­a­tions on extend­ing the Kyoto Pro­to­col had unre­solved issues and the next meet­ing in Novem­ber in Mex­ico will return to this (Wood, 2009).

The deci­sions in the Accord were not legally bind­ing, and did not com­mit coun­tries ever to agree on a bind­ing suc­ces­sor to the Kyoto Pro­to­col (Wynn & Hem­ming, 2009). More­over, it has:

no mech­a­nism to enforce them. Nor does it offer any global emis­sions tar­gets. Even if fully imple­mented, the Accord would allow greenhouse-gas emis­sions to con­tinue ris­ing beyond 2020, and would put the world on a course towards a warm­ing of nearly 4 °C by 2100 (After copen­hagen, 2009).

It is sug­gested that there are bet­ter ways to address this issue proac­tively than just sim­ply wait and do noth­ing. The prob­lems fac­ing our planet Earth is not exclu­sively the UN’s respon­si­bil­ity.  Researchers need to do more to “develop a holis­tic view of car­bon trends across farms, cities, wet­lands, oceans and every other part of Earth.” Essen­tial dis­ci­pline to counter the effects of global warm­ing is the social sci­ences in order to have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of peo­ple, com­mu­ni­ties and soci­ety which  should be cen­tral to devis­ing solu­tions that real­is­ti­cally can be imple­mented (After copen­hagen, 2009). World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Scot­land direc­tor Dr Richard Dixon was say­ing that “this weak Accord will not keep global warm­ing below the dan­ger level of 2C.” He added that the, “Gov­ern­ments must act urgently to set out a clear timetable for when a legally bind­ing agree­ment will be reached.” “In the mean­time, we need to encour­age more local action to reduce emis­sions. From the vil­lage level up to states…” Then, he con­tin­ued on by say­ing, “If our global gov­ern­ments con­tinue to fail us, we must act locally” (Copen­hagen: Global green lobby united in con­dem­na­tion of accord, 2009). “It may be bet­ter to build on the inter­na­tional momen­tum that has been achieved by indi­vid­ual nations pur­su­ing their own goals on cli­mate. Such indi­vid­ual efforts can rein­force one another, even with­out explicit global coor­di­na­tion” (After copen­hagen, 2009).

2. Local Context

2.1 1992 Philip­pine Agenda 21 (PA 21)

Three months after the 1992 Earth Sum­mit, the Philip­pine Coun­cil for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (PCSD) was estab­lished by virtue of Exec­u­tive Order No. 15[17] signed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Fidel V. Ramos on Sep­tem­ber 1, 1992. PCSD was cre­ated for the fol­low­ing rea­sons: (1) the 1987 Con­sti­tu­tion man­dates to ensure the pro­tec­tion and advance­ment of the right of the peo­ple to a bal­anced and health­ful ecol­ogy  in  accor­dance  with  the  rhythm  and  har­mony  of nature;  (2) the  National

Con­ser­va­tion Strat­egy[18] as early as 1989 has taken a bal­anced and inte­grated approach to envi­ron­ment and devel­op­ment issues by incor­po­rat­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment prin­ci­ples and con­cepts in the national pri­or­i­ties of gov­ern­ment as spelled out in the Philip­pine Strat­egy for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (PSSD); (3) the strong adher­ence to the prin­ci­ple of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and firm com­mit­ment to prin­ci­ples set forth in (Global) Agenda 21; and (4) the prin­ci­ple of SD must be inte­grated in the Philip­pine national poli­cies, plans and pro­grams involv­ing all sec­tors of the soci­ety (E.O. No. 15 s. 1992). Isberto (1998) attests by say­ing that “it has long been a source of pride for the Philip­pine gov­ern­ment that Manila was among the first to take action on its com­mit­ments to the United Nations Con­fer­ence on Envi­ron­ment and Devel­op­ment (UNCED)” (p. 2).

Three years later, for­mer Pres­i­dent Fidel V. Ramos issued Mem­o­ran­dum Order No. 288 on ‘Direct­ing the For­mu­la­tion of the Philippine’s Agenda 21 and Acti­vat­ing its For­mu­la­tion Process’ (M.O. No. 288 s. 1995). Cajes[19] (2008) explains that the mem­o­ran­dum has declared the State’s vowed pol­icy, in pur­suit of its key objec­tives of global com­pet­i­tive­ness and poverty alle­vi­a­tion, to bring about sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, for the ben­e­fit of present and future gen­er­a­tions of Fil­ipinos (par. 3).

The fol­low­ing year, the Mem­o­ran­dum Order No. 399 and Exec­u­tive Order 370 were both issued and signed by for­mer Pres­i­dent Fidel V. Ramos on Sep­tem­ber 26, 1996 (M.O. No. 399 s. 1996; E.O. No. 370 s. 1996).  The mem­o­ran­dum ordered (1) the adop­tion and oper­a­tional­iza­tion of the Philip­pine Agenda 21 as the national action agenda for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and (2) the mon­i­tor­ing of its imple­men­ta­tion. For­mer Pres­i­dent Ramos’s excerpt of his speech dur­ing the launch­ing of PA 21 has cap­tured PA 21’s significance:

[W]e do not intend to ‘Grow now and clean up later.’ –When I say, we clean up in terms of our cul­ture, we intend, for exam­ple, to grow and develop with our spir­i­tu­al­ity and ster­ling Fil­ipino val­ues intact. –Clean­ing up as we grow in the realm of cul­ture to me means to har­ness Fil­ipino cre­ativ­ity, val­ues, tal­ents and skills to cre­ate a new model of devel­op­ment, one that is not only demo­c­ra­tic, envi­ron­men­tally friendly and cost-effective, but also cel­e­brates the vibrancy of our diverse cul­tures as well as respects and devel­ops the tremen­dous poten­tial that resides in every one of us. This, after all, is what being maka-Diyos, maka-tao, maka-kalikasan, and maka-bayan mean in real terms (Philip­pine Agenda 21, 2001).

On that very same day, PCSD issued the 163-page doc­u­ment enti­tled, ‘The Philip­pine Agenda 21: A National Agenda for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment for the 21st Cen­tury (PA 21),’ which was drafted after 14 months of con­sul­ta­tions between var­i­ous sec­tors all over the coun­try. What is PA 21? It is the PCSD’s most impor­tant accom­plish­ment which trans­lated Rio Summit’s Global Agenda 21 into Philip­pine con­di­tions which com­prises three major com­po­nents, namely (1) The Prin­ci­ples of Unity; (2) The Action Agenda; and (3) The Imple­men­ta­tion Strate­gies (Isberto, 1998, p. 4).  First, The Prin­ci­ples of Unity refer to the com­mon ground which will enable the key actors in the SD process to unite in their pur­suit of SD. The said prin­ci­ples addressed the fol­low­ing ques­tions: (1) Where are we now? (2) What is sus­tain­able devel­op­ment? (3) Where do we want to go? (4)  How do we get there? (PA 21, Prin­ci­ples of Unity, Chap­ter 1, par. 1). Then, The Action Agenda of the PA 21 detailed the mix of strate­gies that inte­grate the SD para­me­ters in the country’s over­all devel­op­ment strat­egy. In for­mu­lat­ing the action agenda, PA 21 was guided by the fol­low­ing key con­cepts:  (1) Inte­gra­tion, (2) Mul­ti­stake­hold­er­ship and consensus-building and (3) Oper­a­tional­iza­tion (PA 21, Action Agenda, Chap­ter 2, par. 1). Finally, The Imple­men­ta­tion Strate­gies of PA 21 must be anchored on the basic prin­ci­ple of col­lec­tive choices and respon­si­bil­ity and its mech­a­nisms must facil­i­tate coher­ent and coop­er­a­tive human endeavor from all sec­tors of soci­ety (PA 21, Imple­men­ta­tion Strate­gies, Chap­ter 3, par. 1). Since the pur­suit of SD involves a par­a­digm shift, which requires a re-orientation in the fun­da­men­tal val­ues of the soci­ety, PCSD con­sid­ers com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion, edu­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion advo­cacy as an indis­pens­able part of the efforts to main­stream the prin­ci­ples of PA 21 in the var­i­ous devel­op­ment efforts of all stake­hold­ers in the SD process (PA 21, Imple­men­ta­tion Strate­gies, Chap­ter 3, par. 44).

The Exec­u­tive Order 370 on ‘Strength­en­ing the Philip­pine Coun­cil for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment,’ man­dates the coun­cil to insti­tu­tion­al­ize the sup­port of other key sec­tors of the soci­ety and to fur­ther enhance its abil­ity to coor­di­nate (1) plan­ning and (2) pol­icy for­mu­la­tion, (3) mon­i­tor­ing and (4) eval­u­a­tion in the pur­suit of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Sec­tion 2 which describes the “Com­po­si­tion of the Coun­cil,” iden­ti­fies the cat­e­gories of mem­ber­ship accord­ing to (1) civil soci­ety, (2) gov­ern­ment, and (3) labor and busi­ness. Coun­cil mem­bers from the civil soci­ety cat­e­gory shall include the fol­low­ing major groups: women, youth, farm­ers, fisher folks, indige­nous peo­ple, Moro and Cordillera peo­ple, urban poor, per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, acad­eme, pro­fes­sion­als, media, reli­gious groups and NGOs (E.O. No. 370 s. 1996).

From 1992 until 1998 PCSD had real­ized some accom­plish­ments though credit for these can­not be exclu­sively attrib­uted to the coun­cil for it usu­ally acts in con­cert with other agen­cies and orga­ni­za­tions. The fol­low­ing are  the said accom­plish­ments: (1) inte­grat­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment con­cerns into the macro-planning processes of the national gov­ern­ment, (2) sup­port­ing ini­tia­tives to cre­ate local SD coun­cils through tech­ni­cal assis­tance and train­ing at the regional level, (3) help­ing develop a Mon­i­tor­ing, Report­ing and Eval­u­at­ing (MRE) sys­tem on the state of envi­ron­ment and SD in the coun­try, and (4) phas­ing out leaded gaso­line in major urban cen­ters through­out the coun­try by the year 2000 (Isberto, 1998, pp. 4–6).

But even with such great expec­ta­tions and list of activ­i­ties, Isberto (1998) would admit that crit­i­cism was inevitable. NGO mem­bers of the PCSD expressed their dis­sat­is­fac­tions and dis­ap­point­ments because the coun­cil had been pre­oc­cu­pied with an agenda too abstract to be of much prac­ti­cal value to pro­po­nents of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. PCSD had not made a sig­nif­i­cant dent on pol­icy on the envi­ron­ment code, min­ing code, the ances­tral domain law, and tar­iffs and import lib­er­al­iza­tion poli­cies. It was a case where process tri­umph over results for it was inca­pable of address­ing issues that divide the multi-stakeholder body and of tack­ling con­tro­ver­sial or dif­fi­cult issues (pp. 5–6).

Per­las (1999) even enu­mer­ated three exam­ples on how this major pol­icy doc­u­ment is mis­un­der­stood and mis­in­ter­preted. In the pref­ace of the PA 21 Hand­book he said that, (1) PCSD mem­bers who helped draft por­tions of the said doc­u­ment would later, even with­out mali­cious intent, drew out erro­neous pol­icy pro­posal or prob­lem­atic edu­ca­tional mate­ri­als; (2) although Mem­o­ran­dum Order No. 399 was issued for the adop­tion and oper­a­tional­iza­tion of the PA 21 as the national action agenda for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of poli­cies are not aligned with PA 21; and (3) the Mem­o­ran­dum Order No. 47 was issued direct­ing all local gov­ern­ment units (LGUs) to local­ize PA 21, but many of them have nei­ther heard nor exactly know what PA 21 (Per­las, 1999, p. 6).

Nev­er­the­less despite dis­con­tent and frus­tra­tion, it pro­ceeded on with a gen­eral sense of opti­mism as Medalla (1999), on the State­ment of the Repub­lic of the Philip­pines to the Hague Forum (Feb­ru­ary 8–12, 1999), which reported that:

[T]he Philip­pine gov­ern­ment worked closely with NGOs and peo­ples’ orga­ni­za­tions to push reforms that pro­mote devel­op­ment that is broad-based, sus­tain­able and focused on human resources. These ini­tia­tives rec­og­nize the vital role of pop­u­la­tion and human devel­op­ment and seek to attain rapid eco­nomic growth with­out sac­ri­fic­ing the envi­ron­ment. –[O]ur devel­op­ment plans are con­sis­tent with what we call the Philip­pine Agenda 21, our Blue­print for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, which is also in keep­ing with our com­mit­ment to the Rio Agenda 21(pp.1–2).

A month prior to the Hague Forum, the Mem­o­ran­dum Order No. 47 was issued on Jan­u­ary 25, 1999 by for­mer Pres­i­dent Joseph E. Estrada re-affirming PA 21 as the country’s frame­work for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, which strength­ens the oper­a­tions of PA 21, mon­i­tor its imple­men­ta­tion and directs all local gov­ern­ment units (LGUs) to local­ize PA 21 through sus­tain­able inte­grated area devel­op­ment (SIAD), rec­og­nized as a potent frame­work for poverty erad­i­ca­tion (M.O. No. 47 s. 1999; Local Agenda 21, 2008).

The fol­low­ing year, May 4, 2000, the eighth ses­sion of the United Nations Com­mis­sion on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (UNCSD) stressed the impor­tance of early and effec­tive prepa­ra­tions for the 2002 review and assess­ment of progress achieved in the imple­men­ta­tion of Agenda 21 and fur­ther invited all gov­ern­ment, includ­ing the Philip­pines, to under­take national review processes as early as pos­si­ble. Three months later, the Mem­o­ran­dum Order No. 110 ‘Direct­ing the Philip­pine Coun­cil for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (PCSD) to Make Nec­es­sary Prepa­ra­tions for and Effec­tive Par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Ten-year Review of the 1992 United Nations Con­fer­ence on Envi­ron­ment and Devel­op­ment (UNCED) Com­mit­ments’ was issued on August 19, 2000 by for­mer Pres­i­dent Joseph E. Estrada. PCSD is directed to review the progress of the national imple­men­ta­tion of the UNCED com­mit­ments made in 1992, specif­i­cally the imple­men­ta­tion of the Action Agenda of PA 21 (M.O. No. 110 s. 2000).

In an arti­cle enti­tled, ‘The Essence of Philip­pine Agenda 21,’ which was writ­ten three years after the 2002 Earth Sum­mit and nine years after PCSD issued The Philip­pine Agenda 21’s doc­u­ment, Kil­lip[20] (2005) cited a para­graph from that same doc­u­ment under the head­ing: How do we get there?:

Oper­a­tionally, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment is devel­op­ment that draws out the full human poten­tial across ages and gen­er­a­tions and is, at the same time, eco­log­i­cally friendly, eco­nom­i­cally sound, polit­i­cally empow­er­ing, socially just and equi­table, spir­i­tu­ally lib­er­at­ing, gen­der sen­si­tive, based on holis­tic and inte­gra­tive sci­ence, tech­no­log­i­cally appro­pri­ate, builds upon Fil­ipino val­ues, his­tory, cul­ture, and excel­lence, and rests upon strong insti­tu­tional foun­da­tions. (Sec­tion 1.5, Chap­ter 1).

By com­par­ing the cited para­graph above to the real­ity con­fronting the Cordillera Admin­is­tra­tive Region (CAR), Kil­lip (2005) claims it is far from the agenda’s essence:

On mat­ters of con­sul­ta­tion, sad to say, it still has much to be desired. Con­sen­sus is not pre­vail­ing. Leg­is­la­tions, pro­grams, and projects are not being dis­cussed on their mer­its at the grass root level before being imple­mented or enacted. –From the San Roque Multi-purpose Dam to a fly over project to a water source and dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem, some sec­tors per­ceive the non-revelation of com­plete details by the pro­po­nents. On envi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion and equi­table use of resources, indige­nous prac­tices have proven to be supe­rior than mod­ern con­cepts. The muy­ong sys­tem of the Ifu­gaos on water­shed man­age­ment and the lamp­isa sys­tem of Sagada on irri­ga­tion water man­age­ment are two exam­ples why the rice ter­races in the Cordillera sur­vived hun­dreds of years. This is sus­tain­able devel­op­ment in its purest sense (pars. 11–14).

In order to address sim­i­lar (or more seri­ous) issues and con­cerns raised by Kil­lip, in 2007 the Philip­pine Coun­cil for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (PCSD) and The National Eco­nomic and Devel­op­ment Author­ity (NEDA) pub­lished ‘The Hand­book for Main­stream­ing Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment in Pub­lic Sec­tor Deci­sion Mak­ing’ or ‘SD Hand­book’ funded by and in part­ner­ship with the United Nations Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP). The SD Hand­book serves as a guide for pol­i­cy­mak­ers and plan­ners in main­stream­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment (SD) in pub­lic sec­tor deci­sion mak­ing, specif­i­cally in plan­ning, pro­gram­ming, and bud­get­ing  (Philip­pine Coun­cil for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, 2007).

The SD Hand­book explores how devel­op­ment deci­sions and actions can be imple­mented in a sus­tain­able way to achieve inter­gen­er­a­tional well­be­ing or the well­be­ing of all present and future Fil­ipinos. It also looks into the social, eco­nomic and envi­ron­men­tal effects of devel­op­ment deci­sions and actions that lead to the attain­ment of inter­gen­er­a­tional well­be­ing. One of its objec­tives is to enhance the under­stand­ing and capa­bil­ity of pol­i­cy­mak­ers and plan­ners in main­stream­ing sus­tain­able devel­op­ment (SD) in pub­lic sec­tor deci­sion mak­ing, specif­i­cally in plan­ning, pro­gram­ming and bud­get­ing The SD Hand­book as guide is a mod­u­lar approach of lec­tures and work­shops con­sist­ing of four top­ics: (1) Mod­ule I: The Con­cept and Prin­ci­ples of Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment and Some Related Issues, (2) Mod­ule II: SD-Enhanced Sit­u­a­tional Analy­sis, (3) Mod­ule III: SD-Enhanced Devel­op­ment Plan and (4) Mod­ule I: SD-Enhanced Invest­ment Plan (Philip­pine Coun­cil for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, 2007, p. 1).

2.2 2009 Enhanced Philip­pine Agenda 21 (EPA 21)

Tar­radell (2004) finds out that the ini­tia­tives on SD in the Philip­pines can be traced back as early as the 1980s where the first con­cen­trated move towards it has started in 1987 with the draft­ing of PSSD. While the over­all goal of the strat­egy is ‘to achieve eco­nomic growth with ade­quate pro­tec­tion of the country’s bio­log­i­cal resources and its diver­sity, vital ecosys­tem func­tions and over­all envi­ron­men­tal qual­ity,’ its focus is lim­ited mainly on two dimen­sions of SD, the eco­nomic and the envi­ron­men­tal. Then came the adop­tion of the national plan of action for SD in 1996, which was called, ‘The Philip­pine Agenda 21: A National Agenda for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment for the 21st Cen­tury (PA 21)’ (Tar­radell, 2004, pp. 3–4). Encabo (as cited in Tar­radell, 2004) promised that refine­ment and enhance­ment of the PA 21 to the so-called Enhanced Philip­pine Agenda 21 (EPA 21) will be com­pleted by June 2004 and will then be pre­sented to the PCSD for approval. The promised of EPA 21’s com­ple­tion by 2004 took five years before it was approved on Feb­ru­ary 9 2009 by PCSD dur­ing its 50^th meet­ing; an assem­bly presided over by for­mer Sec­re­tary Ralph Recto. What is EPA 21?  The PA 21 was updated into the EPA 21, par­tic­u­larly not­ing the fol­low­ing three (3) areas of con­cern, namely (1) the rise of glob­al­iza­tion and the cre­ation of an exter­nal envi­ron­ment of finance, mar­kets, and tech­nol­ogy did not seem con­ducive to sus­tain­able devel­op­ment; (2) the civil soci­ety needs to spec­ify its com­mit­ments and con­tri­bu­tions to achiev­ing sus­tain­abil­ity in the updated doc­u­ment; and (3) the gov­ern­ment depart­ments need to be imbued with the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment per­spec­tive with which to han­dle issues prop­erly (Envi­ron­men­tal Edu­ca­tion and Infor­ma­tion Divi­sion, 2001).

The key fea­ture of EPA 21 is the shift from an ecosystem-based agenda to a more focused the­matic pro­gram thrusts cov­er­ing the fol­low­ing seven (7) areas: (1) Erad­i­cat­ing Poverty; (2) Man­ag­ing Glob­al­iza­tion; (3) Achiev­ing Social Equity; (4) Secur­ing Peace and Sol­i­dar­ity; (6) Main­tain­ing Eco­log­i­cal Integrity; and (7) Pro­mot­ing Empow­er­ment and Good Gov­er­nance (Philip­pine Coun­cil for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment, 2009).

To simul­ta­ne­ously see what has been hap­pen­ing both glob­ally and locally, Table 1 shows both the Global and Local Poli­cies on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment from 1992 to 2009. The first col­umn indi­cates the dif­fer­ent local poli­cies and the dates they were issued. The sec­ond col­umn pro­vides the names of the incum­bent pres­i­dents who issued these poli­cies, their terms of office, and the poli­cies’ legal abbre­vi­a­tions and cita­tions. The last col­umn gives the dif­fer­ent inter­na­tional sus­tain­able devel­op­ment high­lights from 1972 to 2009.

Table 1. Global and Local Poli­cies on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment 1992–2009 at a Glance

 

 Moti­va­tion to Con­duct the Study

Prov­i­den­tially the 1992 Earth Sum­mit event coin­cided with The Con­sul­ta­tion on African and Asian Spir­i­tu­al­ity (Cos­mic and Indige­nous): New Aware­ness and Ori­en­ta­tion (Colombo, Sri Lanka, June 18–25, 1992) which declares:

Under­ly­ing the his­tory of the last five cen­turies cul­mi­nat­ing in the global crises of the last five decades is a deep spir­i­tual cri­sis of the mean­ing­less­ness of life and of human civ­i­liza­tion itself. It has been caused by the all con­sum­ing destruc­tive power of orga­nized greed for the accu­mu­la­tion of wealth, max­i­miza­tion of prof­its and the self aggran­dize­ment of power. It can be sym­bol­ized in the bib­li­cal phrase “The Wor­ship of Mam­mon” (State­ment of the con­sul­ta­tion on african and asian spir­i­tu­al­ity, 1993, p. 6).

The state­ment above reaf­firms the report of the World Coun­cil of Churches Inter-Orthodox Con­sul­ta­tion (Sofia, Bul­garia, Octo­ber 24– Novem­ber 2, 1987) which concludes:

But we stand today before a wounded cre­ation which suf­fers under dis­torted con­di­tions which are the result of the sin of human­ity. In our self­ish­ness and greed we have used our oth­er­wise good tech­no­log­i­cal abil­i­ties to exploit God’s cre­ation, to destroy the bal­ance of nature and to deform what God orig­i­nally made to be in whole­some com­mu­nion with us and with Him. Cre­ation is no longer inte­grated with human­ity nor is it in har­mony with God (Ortho­dox per­spec­tive on creation,1987, par. 45).

Human­ity has com­mit­ted injus­tice, a great sin, when they lost their capac­ity to enter into a proper rela­tion with nature and with the body of the cre­ation. Enmity between human beings and the nat­ural world has replaced the rela­tion­ship of har­mony and care. Dom­i­na­tion and exploita­tion of the cre­ation for their self­ish ends and greed became the order of his­tory.  The Amer­i­can ecofem­i­nist scholar and the­olo­gian Rose­mary Rad­ford Ruether rein­ter­prets this sin as “a con­di­tion where life-giving rela­tion­ships of equiv­a­lence are turned into death-dealing rela­tion­ships of dom­i­nance and sub­or­di­na­tion” (Wessinger, 1993).

Human­ity has viewed cre­ation sim­ply as a resource to be used for their plea­sure and treated it as an enemy requir­ing force­ful con­trol which brought about today’s eco­log­i­cal cri­sis, “a human and a social prob­lem, con­nected with the infringe­ment of human rights and unequal access to the earth’s resources” (Com­mu­nion and stew­ard­ship: Human per­sons cre­ated in the image of God, 2002).

Paul says in Romans 8:22, 21 & 23 (New Amer­i­can Bible), “We know that all cre­ation is groan­ing in labor pains even until now. It is in hope that cre­ation itself would be set free from slav­ery to cor­rup­tion and share in the glo­ri­ous free­dom of the chil­dren of God. We also groan within our­selves as we wait for adop­tion, the redemp­tion of our bod­ies.” This scrip­tural evi­dence clearly indi­cates the object of redemp­tion which is to free the whole cre­ation from its “groan­ing.” Redemption’s ethic is an earth ethic that builds a sus­tain­able earth com­mu­nity for creation’s well being with­out a return to Eden, and with­out utopias, and golden ages to which to aspire (Ras­mussen as cited in Frohman, 2004).

Because of these dom­i­na­tion and exploita­tion which have gone as far as dis­con­nect­ing us with our indige­nous roots, allow­ing our cul­tural belief sys­tems to dis­in­te­grate and let­ting even the essen­tial social struc­tures fall apart, the writer has embarked on a search for a frame for a sus­tain­able earth com­mu­nity sus­tain­ing the future, on a look for eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples that speak to the spirit. Prov­i­den­tially, he stum­bled across a vision of a future based on Fritjof Capra’s new vision of real­ity “based on aware­ness of the essen­tial inter­re­lat­ed­ness and inter­de­pen­dence of al1 phenomena-physical, bio­log­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, social and cul­tural” (Capra, 1981, p. 265).

Enter­ing into this future, the writer has con­sid­ered Thomas Berry’s three pro­pos­als as viable solu­tions worth pur­su­ing at this very crit­i­cal time in his­tory. Berry (1996) declares that the first con­di­tion is the recog­ni­tion “that the uni­verse is a com­mu­nion of sub­jects rather than a col­lec­tion of objects. This has been rec­og­nized from an early period by the indige­nous peo­ples of the world.” These two —human and nat­ural— [the human world and the nat­ural world] are not sep­a­rate com­mu­ni­ties but one earth com­mu­nity of sub­jects [earth world]. Berry invites us “to begin think­ing within the con­text of the whole earth, the inte­gral com­mu­nity of non-living and liv­ing com­po­nents” [non-human and human] (1996, par. 36). The sec­ond con­di­tion is the recog­ni­tion that the liv­ing earth in the liv­ing uni­verse is pri­mary and humans on earth are deriv­a­tive.  As he puts it: The Earth is not part of the Human Story, the human story is part of the Earth Story (Berry, 1996, par. 37). All human activ­i­ties must be judged first and fore­most by the extent to which they gen­er­ate and fos­ter a mutu­ally enhanc­ing human-earth rela­tion­ship. And the third con­di­tion is the recog­ni­tion that in the future noth­ing much will hap­pen within and to the nat­ural world that does not involve humans (Hes­sel, 1996).

For the pur­pose of this study, the writer has derived three (3) broad but mutu­ally inter­de­pen­dent per­spec­tives and direc­tions from Berry’s three pro­pos­als that have a like­li­hood of assur­ing us a sus­tain­able earth com­mu­nity and recon­nect­ing us with our indige­nous roots. The first con­di­tion, which is a com­pli­men­tary unity, is (1) cosmic-anthropological; the sec­ond, which is cos­mic rela­tion­al­ity, (2) is holis­tic; and finally, the third, which is stew­ard­ship respon­si­bil­ity, is (3) pedagogical.

Like­wise, since the great strug­gle for human sur­vival in a sus­tain­able earth has begun, the writer is firmly con­vinced with Ruether’s stance that the Church’s mis­sion of redemp­tion of the world can­not be divorced from jus­tice in soci­ety and the heal­ing of the wounds of nature wrought by an exploita­tive human indus­trial sys­tem (2000). Jour­ney­ing through Applied Cos­mic Anthro­pol­ogy (ACA) ori­en­ta­tion, the writer pur­sues to live and be ded­i­cated to edu­ca­tion for sus­tain­able liv­ing as his per­sonal choice and deci­sion for a trans­for­ma­tion and a sci­ence applied to a des­tiny that accepts, pro­tects and fos­ters the earth com­mu­nity (Ras­mussen as cited in Hes­sel, 1996).

Albert Ein­stein said, “We will not solve the prob­lems of the world from the same level of think­ing we were at when we cre­ated them” (Bil­lions at risk of dying from star­va­tion, dis­ease, 2009). Think­ing along this line, we will not solve our prob­lems —reli­gious, social, eco­nomic, polit­i­cal, and eco­log­i­cal— by insist­ing on doing the same things that have pro­duced these prob­lems (Lag­dameo, 2009).We  will solve them with a vision that cre­ates “a mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial part­ner­ship with nature and to live within sus­tain­able lim­its” (Bil­lions at risk of dying from star­va­tion, dis­ease, 2009).

For every spe­cific prob­lem, there are many prac­ti­cal and attain­able solu­tions which must be guided by a clear and cor­rect vision. There is no one-size-fits-all solu­tion to com­plex, real-world prob­lems and widely diverse cul­tures and con­texts when it comes to mak­ing mea­sur­able and man­age­able changes and to demon­strat­ing tan­gi­ble results for the pro­mo­tion of sus­tain­able liv­ing. But in any effort to adopt a solu­tion, one con­di­tion is clear, which is cap­tured in the fol­low­ing pas­sage: “No man can serve two mas­ters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye can­not serve God and mam­mon” (Matthew 6:24, King James Ver­sion). Thus, “The Wor­ship of Mam­mon” must and should be replaced by “The Wor­ship of God.”

State­ment of the Problem

In the light of the back­ground, objec­tives, con­text and moti­va­tion above, this study is an attempt to fur­ther interpret-describe (explo­ration, analy­sis, reflec­tion and syn­the­sis [EARS]) the nakakaluwag lived-experiences, to seek spe­cific and con­crete solu­tions in view of holis­tic rela­tion­al­ity that are embed­ded in the people’s shared-beliefs and embod­ied in their shared-practices, which are cosmic-anthropologically ori­ented and at the same time ped­a­gog­i­cally viable, serv­ing as guide for pro-ecological and eth­i­cal choices for sus­tain­able living.

The Research Questions

To fur­ther inves­ti­gate and take a sec­ond look on the nakakaluwag as a Fil­ipino value that envis­ages a sus­tain­able future with cosmic-anthropological in ori­en­ta­tion,  holis­tic rela­tion­al­ity and ped­a­gog­i­cally viable, the writer finds it rea­son­able to posit the fol­low­ing set of detailed research questions:

1. What are the sig­nif­i­cant nakakaluwag lived-experiences of the four­teen (14) co-researchers (Co-Rs) in terms of the four­fold rela­tion­al­ity, with 1.1 God, 1.2 self, 1.3 fellow-human being, and 1.4 creation?

(1. Ano ang [paki­ram­dam[21] ng] mak­ab­u­luhang buhay na karanasang-nakakaluwag ng labing-apat (14) na mga kasamang-mananaliksik sa mga tun­tunin ng apat na magkakaug­nay na relasyon, sa 1.1 Diyos,1.2 sar­ili, 1.3 kapwa, at 1.4 sangnilikha?)

2. What ped­a­gog­i­cal impli­ca­tions for sus­tain­able liv­ing can be drawn from the nakakaluwag lived-experience nar­ra­tives in view of the four­fold relationality?

(2. Ano ang mga imp­likasyon ng pagaaral para sa likas-kayang pamu­muhay na maaar­ing makuha sa kwen­tong buhay na karanasang-nakakaluwag ayon sa pananaw nitong apat na magkakaug­nay na relasyon?)

3. How can these ped­a­gog­i­cal impli­ca­tions fur­nish a com­mon ground for inte­grat­ing the top-down and bottom-up approaches to sus­tain­able living?

(3. Paano ang mga imp­likasyon ng pagaaral maka­pag­bibi­gay ng pangkala­hatang batayan para sa ipagkaka­sundo ng dulog na mula sa itaas at ng dulog na mula sa ibaba para sa likas-kayang pamumuhay?) 

Scope and Lim­i­ta­tions of the Study

This study will be lim­ited and focused on under­stand­ing, illu­mi­nat­ing and bring­ing to life a care­ful interpretation-description of the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag lived-experiences in view of the four­fold rela­tion­al­ity and iden­tify, ana­lyze and assess the implied ped­a­gogy for sus­tain­able liv­ing that can be derived from the lived-experiences nar­ra­tives embed­ded in the shared-beliefs and embod­ied in the shared-practices among the four­teen (14) pur­posely selected Co-Rs who are the multi-sectoral rep­re­sen­ta­tives of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB) com­pris­ing of the fol­low­ing: two (2) admin­is­tra­tors, two (2) teach­ers, two (2) reg­u­lar staff, two (2) tuition-paying stu­dents, two (2) tuition-free (non-paying) stu­dents[22] and four (4) agency/concessionaire hired employ­ees[23]. Their shared-beliefs and shared-practices about nakakaluwag lived-experiences will be fur­ther ana­lyzed, reflected on and derived from which new insights in terms of Berry’s three con­di­tions (1) cosmic-anthropological in ori­en­ta­tion, (2) holis­tic rela­tion­al­ity and (3) ped­a­gog­i­cal viability.

DLS-CSB, a learner-centered com­mu­nity, is a mem­ber of net­work of 17 Lasal­lian schools known as De La Salle Philip­pines (DLSP)[24]. From 18 schools in its incep­tion, the num­ber of schools under the net­work was reduced to 17 when De La Salle Pro­fes­sional Schools was rein­te­grated to De La Salle Uni­ver­sity at the end of SY 2008-09.

Eleven (11) schools in Luzon — Jaime Hilario Inte­grated School-La Salle, De La Salle Araneta Uni­ver­sity, La Salle Col­lege Antipolo, La Salle Green Hills, De La Salle Uni­ver­sity, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, De La Salle San­ti­ago Zobel School, De La Salle University-Dasmariñas, De La Salle Health Sci­ences Insti­tute, De La Salle Can­lubang, and De La Salle Lipa;

Three (3) schools in Visayas — Uni­ver­sity of St. La Salle, St. Joseph School-La Salle, and De La Salle Andres Sori­ano Memo­r­ial College;

Three (3) schools in Min­danao — La Salle Uni­ver­sity, La Salle Acad­emy, and De La Salle John Bosco Col­lege — all work in com­mu­nion to con­tinue the mis­sion that St. John Bap­tist de La Salle started some 300 years ago.

In DLS-CSB, Faith, Zeal in Ser­vice and Com­mu­nion in Mis­sion are its three guid­ing Lasal­lian prin­ci­ples. In DLS-CSB “learn­ing is a con­tin­u­ing process of trans­for­ma­tion” where it embraces “spir­i­tu­al­ity, cre­ative pur­suits, artis­tic endeav­ors, ser­vice to the com­mu­nity, aware­ness of envi­ron­men­tal issues, and con­cern for the com­mon good” (par. 4).

Housed in De La Salle University-Manila (DLSU-M) in 1980, DLS-CSB[25] started as a night school for work­ing stu­dents under the lead­er­ship of the late Br. Andrew B. Gon­za­lez FSC. Since the school became autonomous in 1988, it has evolved over the course of the last 22 years into a dynamic insti­tu­tion that is offer­ing pio­neer­ing inno­v­a­tive degree and non-degree programs.

Research Time-Table

Table 2 below shows the time-table for this study begin­ning from the month of Feb­ru­ary, 2010 until the fol­low­ing year of the month of March, 2011. This time-table helps define the expec­ta­tions from the writer at the indi­vid­ual level in car­ry­ing out these nec­es­sary activities.

It is also a tool that helps the writer effec­tively man­age and orga­nize. The first col­umn describes the activ­i­ties and tasks being done while con­duct­ing the study, while the sec­ond col­umn indi­cates the expected com­ple­tion and end date of the activities.

Table 2. Research Time-Table Feb­ru­ary 2010 - March 2011

 Sig­nif­i­cance of the Study

The Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag is a unique cul­tural fea­ture that con­tributes to the global ethic [uni­ver­sal value] for sus­tain­able liv­ing. The find­ings and the results of this study will be help­ful to the following:

First, by doing a hermeneu­tic phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal inquiry into the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag that are embed­ded in the shared-beliefs and embod­ied in the shared-practices of the four­teen (14) multi-sectoral rep­re­sen­ta­tives of DLS-CSB, the writer may draw upon these Fil­ipino cul­tural resource, anchor from which and apply new insight into con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion and research for a sus­tain­able living.

Sec­ond, by inte­grat­ing the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag with other Fil­ipino beliefs and prac­tices in view of holis­tic rela­tion­al­ity the writer may intro­duce such inte­gra­tion as an alter­na­tive ped­a­gog­i­cal frame for a sus­tain­able living.

Third, the writer may pro­pose val­ues re-orientation or for­ma­tion pro­gram for sus­tain­able liv­ing based on the above alter­na­tive ped­a­gog­i­cal frame.

Finally, by tak­ing a sec­ond look at the Fil­ipino value nakakaluwag in view of holis­tic rela­tion­al­ity, the writer may unravel these two eco­log­i­cal and social jus­tice val­ues (eco-justice) that the Fil­ipinos firmly uphold, which are deeply woven into the fab­ric of their shared-beliefs and shared-practices.

Def­i­n­i­tion of Terms  

The fol­low­ing terms and def­i­n­i­tions will be used in this study.

Accord is a for­mal agree­ment between coun­tries or groups (Macmil­lan Eng­lish Online Dic­tio­nary). The main out­come of the Copen­hagen Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence Copen­hagen, Den­mark, Decem­ber 7–18, 2009 and attended by over 110 heads of gov­ern­ment and state, was the ‘Copen­hagen Accord’ (Müller 2010, p. 5).

A Sys­tem The­ory refers to Fritjof Capra’s inte­grated whole frame­work, look­ing at the world in terms of the inter­re­lat­ed­ness and inter­de­pen­dence of all phe­nom­ena (1981, p. 43).

Anthro­po­log­i­cal error referred to John Paul II’s def­i­n­i­tion as root of the sense­less destruc­tion of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment. This error makes woman/man think that s/he can make arbi­trary use of the earth, sub­ject­ing it with­out restraint to her/his will (CA n. 37).

Blue­print is a detailed plan for doing some­thing new, or some­thing that is a model for how some­thing should be done (Macmil­lan Eng­lish Online Dictionary).

Bottom-up strat­egy is an approach, which the writer  con­sid­ered as compassion-driven and community-sustaining in its ori­en­ta­tion, it is also referred to groups’ and indi­vid­u­als’ ini­tia­tives engaged in orga­niz­ing from the bottom-up and assumed the respon­si­bil­ity toward liv­ing sus­tain­ably and sav­ing the Earth from its irrepara­ble damage.

Compassion-driven peo­ples are groups of indi­vid­u­als who assume the respon­si­bil­ity toward liv­ing sus­tain­ably and sav­ing the Earth.

Cos­mic refers to an ori­en­ta­tion that flows from fun­da­men­tal knowl­edge and the wis­dom and insight to apply that knowl­edge to assess­ing our place [and role] in the Uni­verse (Tyson, 2007, par. 35).

Cul­tural belief sys­tems[27] refer to the belief sys­tems that emanate from our cul­ture that shape the way we think, live, act, and inter­act with each other and with those out­side our culture…reflec[ting] our val­ues and per­spec­tives and at the same time can close our minds to accept­ing other ways of think­ing and doing (McQuil­lan as cited in George, P. & Aron­son, R., 2003).

Dan­ger­ous Anthro­pogenic Inter­fer­ence (DAI) refers to the impacts of cli­mate change for not doing what must be done to avert it.

Death-dealing rela­tion­ships of dom­i­nance and sub­or­di­na­tion refer to Rose­mary Rad­ford Ruether’s intepre­ta­tions of sin where the enmity between human beings and the nat­ural world has replaced the rela­tion­ship of har­mony and care, dom­i­na­tion and exploita­tion of the cre­ation for self­ish ends and greed are the order of history.

 

Earth Sum­mit refers to the 1992 and 2002 global con­fer­ences on Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (SD): United Nations Con­fer­ence on Envi­ron­ment and Devel­op­ment (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 2–14, 1992 and The World Sum­mit of Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (WSSD) held in Johan­nes­burg, South Africa, August 24– Sep­tem­ber 4, 2002.

Eco-justice refers to the two val­ues brought together into the hyphen­ated word eco-justice, which affirms the emer­gence of con­struc­tive human responses that con­cen­trate on the link between eco­log­i­cal health and social jus­tice. It occurs wher­ever human beings receive enough sus­te­nance and build enough com­mu­nity to live har­mo­niously with God, to achieve equity among humans, and to appre­ci­ate the rest of cre­ation for its own sake (Hes­sel, 1996, p.12).

Encycli­cal is an offi­cial announce­ment by the pope in the form of a let­ter (Macmil­lan Eng­lish Online Dictionary).

Global ethics (uni­ver­sal val­ues) refers to Hans Küng’s def­i­n­i­tion of a com­pre­hen­sive ethic—founded on the bedrock of mutual respect and humane treat­ment of all beings—that would encom­pass the eco­log­i­cal, legal, tech­no­log­i­cal, and social pat­terns that are reshap­ing civ­i­liza­tion and to which all nations and peo­ples of the most var­ied back­grounds and beliefs can com­mit themselves.

Global warm­ing is the slow increase in the tem­per­a­ture of the Earth caused partly by the green­house effect increas­ing the amount of car­bon diox­ide in the atmos­phere (Macmil­lan Eng­lish Online Dictionary).

Hermeneu­tic phe­nom­e­nol­ogy is to bring the inter­pre­ta­tion of a phe­nom­e­non or phe­nom­ena to life by focus­ing on the lived expe­ri­ences of peo­ple (Van Manen as cited in Fogel, 2009). It explores the par­tic­i­pants’ expe­ri­ences with fur­ther abstrac­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion by the researchers based on researchers’ the­o­ret­i­cal and per­sonal knowl­edge (Ajjawi & Higgs, 2007). The biases and assump­tions of the researcher are not brack­eted or set aside, but rather are embed­ded and essen­tial to the inter­pre­tive process (Laverty, 2003, p. 17). It inves­ti­gates [inter­prets] and describes a phe­nom­e­non as expe­ri­enced in life through phe­nom­e­no­log­i­cal reflec­tion and writ­ing by devel­op­ing a descrip­tion [and inter­pre­ta­tion] of the phe­nom­e­non (Osborne, 1994 as cited in Flood, 2010). Inde­pen­dently, hermeneu­tics is inter­pre­tive and phe­nom­e­nol­ogy is descrip­tive. But as com­bined dis­ci­pline, it is both inter­pre­tive seek­ing mean­ing and descrip­tive focus­ing on how things appear (Dou­glas & Wykowski, 2001, p. 90–91).

Holis­tic Rela­tion­al­ity also referred to as the essen­tial rela­tions that extend in four direc­tions or four­fold rela­tion­al­ity, namely to God, to one­self, to neigh­bors and to cre­ation as a whole. Together with its nine prin­ci­ples, they are dis­cussed with greater detail in the sec­tion of Review of Related Lit­er­a­ture and Related Studies.

Indige­nous is hav­ing orig­i­nated in and being pro­duced, grow­ing, liv­ing, or occur­ring nat­u­rally in a par­tic­u­lar region or envi­ron­ment (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary).

Life-giving rela­tion­ships also referred to as Holis­tic Rela­tion­al­ity, see above definition.

Life-giving rela­tion­ships of equiv­a­lence accord­ing to Rose­mary Rad­ford Ruether is a rela­tion­ship of har­mony and care between human beings and the nat­ural world. For Ruether, the oppo­site of life-giving rela­tion­ships of equiv­a­lence is rela­tion­ships that con­sti­tute sin.

Mag­in­hawang buhay is liv­ing together in peace­ful har­mony which is derived from the word gin­hawa see­ing the expe­ri­ence rest, respite or relief as delight­ful and some­thing to be rel­ished (De Mesa & Wostyn as cited in Ingles, 2006).

Middle-in strat­egy refers to the com­mon ped­a­gog­i­cal ground where top-down and bottom-up approaches to sus­tain­able liv­ing reach synthesis.

Nakakaluwag[28] The word nakakaluwag is derived from the Taga­log word luwag or maluwag, which denotes a notion of belong­ing­ness to the rich eco­nomic sta­tus of soci­ety. As a Fil­ipino value, it is con­sid­ered as a wide locus, which man­i­fests a global ethic, a sus­tain­able world­view and a con­di­tion for holis­tic relationality.

Pakikipagkapwa-tao is the root of both pakiki­ra­may and malasakit the Fil­ipino beliefs and prac­tices that respect life and dig­nity of per­sons (Ingles, 2006).

Pakiki­ra­may is the going out of one’s way in order to share the sor­row of oth­ers in times of crises (a gen­uine effort of giv­ing care) and is the off­shoot of the expe­ri­ence of nakakaluwag; the expres­sion could even be used when one runs out of money, but not of love (kung min­san kulang ang pera, pero hindi kulang sa pag­ma­malasakit) Both pakiki­ra­may and malasakit are traces and expres­sions of pakikipagkapwa-tao (De Mesa; Dolor 2001 as cited in Ingles, 2006).

Pro­to­col refers to an inter­na­tional agree­ment, like the Kyoto Pro­to­col (Kyoto, Japan, Decem­ber 11, 1997) an agree­ment which expires on 2012 and urgently calls for a new cli­mate protocol.

Redemption’s ethic is an earth ethic that builds a sus­tain­able earth com­mu­nity for creation’s well being with­out a return to Eden, and with­out utopias, and golden ages to which to aspire (Frohman, 2004).

Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment (SD) is dis­cussed with greater detail in foot­note 5, page 5.

The Wor­ship of God is a bib­li­cal phrase whose sym­bolic mean­ing is the direct oppo­site of “The Wor­ship of Mam­mon.” The writer, in search for a frame for a sus­tain­able earth com­mu­nity sus­tain­ing the future and on a look for eth­i­cal prin­ci­ples that speak to the spirit, prov­i­den­tially finds Wor­ship of God in two artic­u­la­tions: First, based on Fritjof Capra’s vision of real­ity, which is an aware­ness of the essen­tial inter­re­lat­ed­ness and inter­de­pen­dence of al1 phenomena-physical, bio­log­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, social and cul­tural” (Capra, 1981, p. 265). And sec­ond, based on the jus­tice con­cept as “Right-Relations”  of Hebraic Covenant The­ol­ogy or even bet­ter as Fuellenbach’s Life Giv­ing Rela­tion­ships (1) with their fel­low human beings, (2) with them­selves, (3) with nature (cre­ation) and (4) ulti­mately with God (Fuel­len­bach, 1998, p. 195).

The Wor­ship of Mam­mon is the bib­li­cal phrase used by the Con­sul­ta­tion on African and Asian Spir­i­tu­al­ity (Cos­mic and Indige­nous): New Aware­ness and Ori­en­ta­tion held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, June 18–25, 1992 to sym­bol­ize the global crises of the last five decades which is a deep spir­i­tual cri­sis of the mean­ing­less­ness of life and of human civ­i­liza­tion itself that has been caused by the all con­sum­ing destruc­tive power of orga­nized greed for the accu­mu­la­tion of wealth, max­i­miza­tion of prof­its and the self aggran­dize­ment of power.  (State­ment of the con­sul­ta­tion on african and asian spir­i­tu­al­ity, 1993, p. 6).

Top-down strat­egy is an approach, which the writer con­sid­ered as all the sig­nif­i­cant efforts that estab­lish com­mon stan­dards in help­ing meet the global need to move toward sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. These global stan­dards are cre­ated by con­sen­sus, defined, approved and main­tained by a rec­og­nized inter­na­tional body com­posed of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from mem­ber nations, includ­ing but not lim­ited to inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions, inter­na­tional non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions and inter­gov­ern­men­tal organizations.

Trin­ity also known as Trini­tar­ian God or Tri­une God refers to Gail­lardetz’ def­i­n­i­tion that God’s very being, what it is for God to be, is lov­ing, life-giving rela­tion­al­ity. God does not just have a love rela­tion­ship with us; God is lov­ing rela­tion­al­ity (Gail­lardetz, 1997, p.12).