It was good being able to teach my Ateneo environmental science students with them over in the Loyola Campus in Quezon City and with me here in Lima. We did it via video Skype and happily the connections was good. I will be doing this also with my DLSU Administrative Law classes and my Ateneo Law School classes. I would have tried it with my XU Constitutional Law class but that class is too big and Skype probably wont work. In todays class, I gave my students a short update of the negotiations, sharing how busy we are and how hard the work is even as we are only on the second day of a 12-14 day marathon talks. I also told them how we Filipinos here in Lima are watching very carefully Hagupit/Ruby as it makes it way to our islands, knowing how our work in the climate change negotiations will become doubly complex and challenging if disaster hit us again as it did in the last three years (Sendong, Pablo and Yolanda) which all hit the Philippines on, before or right after the annual climate change conferences. After the update on Lima, I then explained to the class what they will be doing for the rest of the afternoon. They will be simulating an EIA public hearing on a cement plant so that they have a sense of how the EIA law is being implemented. The exercise is based on my experience of the Bolinao cement plant in the mid-90s which was the first experience of the DENR denying the issuance of an environmental compliance certificate. Atty. Pauline Caspellan will end the class with a lecture on the EIA law, with emphasis on the Boracay case and its implications on how EIA should be conducted. I have also asked Pau to give the class an overview of the environmental institutions of the country and how it intersects with the justice system (courts). Now thats done, its time to rest and call it a day.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 06:28:36 +0000
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