Challenge To The Philippine Network Of Environmental Journalists – DA Baguio Reserve Being Turned Into Private Property!

Did you know that July is “Cordillera Month”? Are we going to celebrate by giving away 10 ha public property to private people?

Life is full of contradictions. The latest news from several Facebook posts of Robert Domoguen, Regional Information Officer of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), is that 10 hectares of the Baguio Animal Breeding & Research Center (BABRC), part of the Department of Agriculture (DA), are being claimed by some private party and such claim is being enforced by the Dragon Knights Security Agency.

The regional center of the CAR is Baguio City. I love Baguio as “City of the Pines,” so I see the above imbroglio as a public environmental problem with a private property twist.

Today, Sunday, 18 July 2021, I visited the website claimed by PNEJ, http://www.pnej.org/, and found it occupied by Marietta Roofing Company of Australia! I further pursue my search, and find that PNEJ has no website at all; it is just “advertising” itself at a webpage[1] of Philippine EnviroNews (Environews.ph). It tells me teenager PNEJ is growing up barely aware of the power of the Internet! PNEJ does have a Facebook page, but that’s not an independent website – I do not understand why PNEJ cannot create and maintain a blog of its own.

In any case, PNEJ says on its Facebook page[2], among other things:

PNEJ aims to empower and enable journalists to improve the quality, accuracy, and intensity of environmental reporting in the Philippines

“Improve the quality… of environmental reporting in the Philippines.” Right on, PNEJ!

I understand Mr Domoguen’s private-party claimant problem with the Baguio Center – now, I ask, with at least 1 PNEJ member based in Baguio City I know (will not mention his name), why is PNEJ not reporting, not even once that I know, on Mr Domoguen’s Facebook complaint that some private party is laying claim on 10 hectares of the BABRC in Baguio? I can just see those 10 hectares becoming a business center, no longer forestland dominated by Pinus kesiya (Benguet pine) – which is why Baguio City has been known as “Pines City” or “City of the Pines.” No pine scent doesn’t smell nice!

So I hereby challenge any and all of the members of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists to take up what I shall conveniently refer to here as The Domoguen Challenge:

Visit the BABRC site, ask questions, interview people, do diligent research, following what I call iTHINK Journalism – and report to the people. (For my “iTHINK Journalism,” see my article “Media Is In The Wrong Media Class Struggle – Media Should Be A Force For Good[3]!” 14 July 2021, Brave New World PH.)

PNEJ, remember: Media should be a force for good!

I was a founding officer of PNEJ that was launched on 03 June 2010 at the Heritage Hotel Manila (see my article “Hope  From PNEJ. New Network Of Eco-Journalists[4],” 04 June 2010, A Magazine Called Love).

PNEJ – are you for the environment or not!?@517

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[1]https://environews.ph/about/

[2]https://www.facebook.com/Philippine-Network-of-Environmental-Journalists-Inc-PNEJ-190967870939713/

[3]https://bravenewworldph.blogspot.com/2021/07/media-is-in-wrong-media-class-struggle.html?q=%22ithink+journalism%22

[4]http://amagazinecalledlove.blogspot.com/2010/06/hope-from-pnej-new-network-of-eco.html