This World Environment Day, YACAP reaffirms its determination to save people and the planet

by Viggo Sarmago

The climate strike: environmentalists hold placards to assert one thing: to defend the environment. Their main demand: to put an end to bureaucrat capitalist and imperialist systems that displace and plunder people and the environment. Photo by Viggo Sarmago

On a rainy Friday, June 5, 2026, environmentalists set up booths, and held a climate strike in Liwasang Bonifacio, Manila, to commemorate this year’s World Environment Day amid the recent and persisting development projects that destroy the environment, displace communities and worsen the climate crisis.

*A scene from this year’s World Environment Day. Photo by Viggo Sarmago*

Rampant mining activities in the mountains, exploitative reclamation projects in our seas, renewable energy projects that displace indigenous communities and threaten preservation sites, and destructive military exercises like Balikatan continue. Despite claiming to be a “frustrated scientist,” Marcos Jr. and his administration has done nothing to support genuine climate justice, as he continues to coddle imperial nations like the US and meddling corporations.

Booths of Panatang Luntian and Center for Environmental Concerns. They also demand for the removal of foreign entities such as Oceana Gold and FCF Minerals, the parent company of Woggle Corp. who set up drilling operations in Dupax Del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya. Despite the victory over Woggle Corp back in the first quarter of the year, mining persists in different regions. Communities affirm their duty to protect and fight for the land that is rightfully theirs.

The most recent controversy is the Southern Access Link Expressway (SALEX), a proposed 40.65km elevated expressway that is part of the larger expressway network in the National Capital Region (NCR). It is being built and will be operated by Business Tycoon Ramon Ang’s San Miguel Corporation (SMC). The construction of these expressways has been linked to worsening floods, higher noise pollution, and the displacement of communities despite its promises of economic growth and development, which raises the question of who it actually serves. That is why environmentalists trooped to Quirino Avenue, on the 26th of May, after the cutting of 600 decades-long trees along the road to make way for the SALEX.

Youth environmentalists condemn not only the cutting of mature trees, but the broader implications of development projects that undermine both marginalized communities and the environment. The youth also assert the use of science and technology for the people.

Migo Pagdanganan, a youth scientist from UP Diliman, mentions that corruption is intricately linked to the plunder of our environment. While money funnels into the pockets of the ruling elite, it undermines the youth’s capabilities to use science for good. Photo by Viggo Sarmago

Gio Biglaen, another youth scientist from UP Diliman, asserts the need for science and technology to serve the people. He explains that what the San Miguel Corporation is doing is the opposite of how science should be used: for plunder, and for profit. Photo by Viggo Sarmago

While trees were being cut, many livelihoods in Manila were burned to ash. On May 24, massive fires erupted in Parola, Tondo, and displaced around 2,000 families from urban poor communities. They suspect that these fires are linked to various housing projects, the North-South Harbour Bridgeway and the aforementioned SALEX, and demanded a deeper investigation into the issue. Even if they weren’t the cause of the fire, it still means that thousands were displaced with nowhere to go and no compensation to erect concrete infrastructures.

So during this year’s World Environment Day, YACAP and other environmentalists returned to Quirino Ave and held a silent protest, calling for the full cancellation of the tree cutting after the Department of Energy and Natural Resources (DENR) ordered its temporary suspension.

And with the foreboding Super El Niño that is predicted to bring heavy rains and typhoons, it is the marginalized who will bear the brunt of what the ruling elite would call “resilience.”

We at YACAP insist that a more sustainable future will not exist if disruptive projects like SALEX hide under the facade of national development. Whether it be through legislation, or other different forms of activism, it is the youth–the masses that have the power to enact system change and to hold those in power accountable.

So on this year’s climate strike, YACAP and other environmentalists reaffirm their calls for a just and sustainable future that is grounded on climate justice, and to uproot deep-rooted bureaucratic capitalist systems that have long plundered both people and the environment.

The organizations, councils and individuals that joined this year’s climate strike are: Saribuhay, Agham Youth, Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC), Panatang Luntian, Agos Makati Coalition, Engage UP, Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, Maginhawa Eco Store, Greenpeace PH, PNU-USC-Central Student Council (Luntian taskforce), By Egpai and Kriselda Freedom.