Filipino activist highlights Jesuit ecological justice campaign

“The cry of the Earth is intimately linked with the cry of the poor.” 

These words from Laudato si’ — Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical addressed to all Catholics — resonate deeply in the heart and mind of Brex Aravelo, a Filipino environmental activist in Canada on a speaking tour as part of Canadian Jesuit International’s (CJI) fall ecological justice campaign.

Arevalo is visiting Ottawa and several other Canadian cities to raise awareness of the environmental issues in his native country and to amplify the voices of the poor who are most impacted by them.

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 He is approaching the topic through the lens of Catholic social teaching and bringing to Canadian audiences the stories of some of the most marginalized people in the Philippines and neighbouring countries whose lives, health and livelihoods are at risk because of environmental destruction. He will also explore how Canadians, as members of the global village, can stand in solidarity with the poor and spur action to advance ecological justice in the Global South.

A key point is international waste management practices, particularly exporting garbage to countries in the Global South where it is burned in massive incinerators that emit toxic fumes that cause untold damage and destroy the health of those who live nearby.  

Aravelo’s first speaking engagement was at the Archdiocese of Montreal during Québec’s Waste Reduction Week from Oct. 15 to 21. Next came an Oct. 21 at Ottawa’s Saint Paul University where he was to speak on “Margins at the Centre: Navigating a just transition in the wild, wild waste.” CJI was one of the hosts, along with the Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall, the Laudato si’ Movement, St. Basil’s Church, ORCIE (Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology) and Saint Paul University.

Aravelo’s own journey from indifference to environmental activism exemplifies the work of Jesuits and their leadership in the field of environmental protection.

Born in the coastal city of Lingayen, he initially had no interest in environmental issues and no awareness of the fragility of the Earth’s ecosystem and its impact on human beings. But after completing a Master’s degree in environmental planning he had an opportunity to work with Jesuits, who woke him up to the devastation caused by environmental destruction and started him on a path of committed activism.

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“I worked for years with Ecojesuit (the global communications platform and online resource centre for the global Ignatian Advocacy Network),” he told The Catholic Register. “We visited many Indigenous people and heard their stories. I came to value the community aspect of their lives and to appreciate how these ‘forest people’ as they are called care for their land.

“We visited Bundum, a small village in a mountainous area inhabited by tribal, Indigenous people who struggled for years with deforestation, and learned their stories,” he said, adding that their respectful attitude to the land moved and impressed him greatly.

Aravelo currently works with poor urban communities in Manila, a modern city of glass skyscrapers and corporate offices. But mostly hidden from tourist eyes, a destitute population in one of the city’s slum neighbourhoods continues to suffer from the legacy of “Smokey Mountain,” a landfill that got its name from the smoke rising from fires burning within the decomposing waste.

Although officially closed in 1995, Smokey Mountain is still home to 25,000 people who scratch out a living by collecting and sorting waste.

“They are actually climate champions because they contribute to waste sorting and cleaning up, but their lives are badly disrupted by industrial scale waste-burning practices,” Aravelo said, explaining that for opposing a $500,000 (U.S.) proposal for a waste incinerator, authorities in the Philippines are punishing them by withholding services such as access to water, adding to the misery of living in such a toxic environment.

“The poverty here is so acute, some families are forced to send their children to orphanages,” he said. 

As incineration campaigner for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Aravelo supports the advocacy efforts of these communities.

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Aravelo notes that Canada exports large amounts of waste to the Philippines and neighbouring countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, and is thus linked to the garbage-disposal practices that severely impact the lives and health of the most marginalized in these countries.

“I’m very excited to be coming to Canada,” he said. “My talks will not be just a technical presentation. I want to express how my own faith has deepened my activism. It’s always the poor, the farmers, fishers and garbage pickers who are sacrificed in the name of progress. I want to explore how, together, we can bring these people back from the margins to the centre.”

(Susan Korah is an Ottawa correspondent for The Catholic Register.)