Green Alert Negros yesterday justified the protest of their members at the closing rites of the Provincial Environment Week celebration Friday, as it accused the provincial government of playing the role of an “architect” in “selling” Mt. Kanlaon to the Energy Development Corp.

Mark Cervantes of Green Alert said, “What we did was right, and the provincial government has to face all kinds of indignation for what it has done to Mt. Kanlaon.”

Provincial Environment and Management Officer Edwin Abanil, who was among the organizers of the activity, expressed his dismay over the attitude of the environmentalists, who disrupted the culmination program of the Provincial Environment Week in Bacolod City.

Organizers and participants of the Environment Week celebration said they were shocked by the behavior of the environmentalists who suddenly stormed in and posted themselves behind the presidential table, which was occupied by Vice Governor Emilio Yulo III and other guests, to display placards against the EDC geothermal expansion inside the buffer zone, ignoring an appeal for them to vacate the area.

While he respects their stand on the issue, Abanil earlier said environmentalists should have displayed good manners and right conduct if they want to gather sympathy for their cause.

Cervantes, in a Green Alert press statement, said it is Abanil who should display good manners after he called “bastos” the protestors in front of the stage.

“We aired our position in proper venues, but the province played dead and numb to our call,” Cervantes claimed.

The Negros Occidental Sangguniang Panlalawigan recently approved the proposed memorandum of agreement between the provincial government and EDC, which spelled out strict conditions for the power firm to follow, while operating within the buffer zone.

It also authorized Governor Isidro Zayco to sign the MOA with EDC representatives.

EDC had sought the SP concurrence on its entry to the buffer zone to tap more geothermal energy for its Northern Negros Geothermal Power Plant.

EDC said it will only utilize 12.5 hectares of the 169 hectare- buffer zone.*GPB

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