A SOJOURNER’S VIEW: The urgency to combat climate change and to fight for climate justice
(Karl Gaspar’s foreword to the book, “Integral Ecology Ministry: Doing Ecological Theology and Advocacy in Light of Laudato Si’” written by Fr. Reynaldo D. Raluto. The book was launched on 19 September 2025 in Libona, Bukidnon, on the 25th anniversary of his presbyteral ordination. Raluto is parish priest of Libona)
These days, there is no more denying of the tragic consequences of climate change!
In a recent report of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the message is very clear for the whole of humanity: “Climate Change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment. From shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, to rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding, the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale.”
This serious warning has been echoed by many science research institutions, civil society groups, mass and social media, academic institutions, environmental advocates, and many others. They all agree that climate change can no longer be regarded as a fringe subject, as it has evolved into a global crisis. With the planet’s average temperature steadily rising, natural disasters (droughts, wildfires, typhoons, floods, etc.) have become more often and deadlier, resulting in the loss of human life. Human survival now depends on radical interventions to combat climate change now!
As a global spiritual leader, Pope Francis in May 2015 issued a most timely encyclical, “Laudato Si’ Care for our Common Home!” While issued primarily to challenge the 1.4 billion Catholics around the world, it was addressed to the whole of humanity. This encyclical asserts that, as God created the world and entrusted it to us as a gift, we have the responsibility to care for and protect it. In so doing, we also protect all people who are part of creation. Thus, protecting human dignity is strongly linked to care for creation.
In 2019, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) followed with its second pastoral statement, “An Urgent Call for Ecological Conversion. Hope in the Face of Climate Emergency.”
Meanwhile, environmentalists around the world have continued to warn humanity that greenhouse gas levels are record high along with global temperatures. The rise of sea level is also record high. The crucial question to be asked these days is whether humanity across the devastated planet is listening to these dire warnings. On one hand, there is no lack of “talk,” but on the other hand, there is too little “walk!”
There continues to be a lot of spoken and written words about the impact of climate change in both mass and social media, news reports, talk shows, during conferences organized by various institutions, homilies of priests in churches, and even among small group discussions.
Unfortunately, the necessary actions that are urgently needed to combat climate change have not lived up to expectations! People around the world, through their governments, civil society organizations (CSOs), churches, etc., have not been able to mobilize the needed political will to do much more than what is being done today!
This is really true in the Philippines and particularly in Mindanao. However, earlier in the late 1980s until the early 2000s, there was an outburst of ecological concern and environmental actions in Mindanao. Today, however, it seems as if there has been a lessening of such concerns with their concomitant actions.
The ecological movement in Mindanao began to arise at the tailend of the Marcos dictatorial regime. The Columban Missionaries in Western Mindanao pioneered this environmental advocacy as they began to sense the importance of dealing with environmental issues. This was the time when very few people heard about global warming, which had become more well-known in the West. Activists in Mindanao were not interested in dealing with environmental issues then because their concern was more on the abuses of martial law and the ensuing human rights violations.
However, after EDSA I in 1986, there arose more interest in environmental issues among the activist circles. There were a number of watershed events that pushed forward the thrust towards ecological advocacy. Two of these were the People Power action of ordinary peasants against logging companies. To stop the logging operations that affected their farming livelihood, they not only protested but also acted to stop these operations. This took place in 1987-88 in San Fernando, Bukidnon and Midsalip in Zamboanga Del Sur.
The San Fernando experience showed how a local church can mobilize its social capital and resources to support the people’s struggle against influential and powerful logging companies. The Scarboro Missionaries, who were the parish priests, supported by the members of the Redemptorist Mission Team, backed up the Gagmay’ng Kristohanong Katilingban (GKK or Basic Eclessial Communities) across the San Fernando parish, whose members decided to barricade the roads so the logging trucks could not transport the round logs to Cagayan De Oro. Their action successfully ended the operations of two logging firms as ordered by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
This People Power event galvanized the entire diocese of Malaybalay. In other parishes across Bukidnon, the people also acted to stop logging operations.
Eventually, this movement angered the offended loggers. This led to the killing of Fr. Nery Lito Satur, one of the most active advocates to stop all logging operations in Bukidnon, in October 1991.
Killers hired by angry loggers blocked an isolated road in Barangay Magsal in Guinoyuran, Valencia, and shot Fr. Neri as his vehicle approached them. Later, he was found dead among wild sunflowers by the roadside.
Bukidnon’s environment has been the most devastated among the provinces across Mindanao in the past century. Up to the end of the Spanish colonial period, Bukidnon was left untouched by those who would later abuse its biodiversity. The indigenous communities were primarily the ones who enjoyed the bounty of the land in their ancestral domain. When the Americans took over, Bukidnon became their major target for agricultural development. This arose as the US colonial government decided to make this area the site for plantations. Interested companies were provided land grants of more than a thousand hectares.
In time, roads began to penetrate this area, followed by the cutting of trees among the primal forests. Soon, pineapple began to appear, and the plantations expanded year after year. In the following decades until today, the plantations have continued to expand as other products penetrated Bukidnon — rubber, sugar cane, corn, coffee and even tree plantations. Today, travelers across the province could not help but be saddened by the wide expanse of land exploited by agribusiness plantations, even as they are also saddened to see all the bald mountains resulting from continuous logging.
Agribusiness plantations bring sad news wherever they appear. The negative impact of plantations include the following: soil erosion leading to the loss of the soil’s fertility, water courses are damaged through increased siltation due to soil erosion, chemical pollution through the widespread use of agrochemicals, which impacts people’s livelihood, habitat loss, and the disappearance of useful plants. These large-scale plantations lead to negative social and environmental impacts, which include the clearing of remaining forests. And yet today, plantations continue to expand in Bukidnon, which also leads to the displacement of indigenous people from their ancestral domain.
The increasing environmental crisis in Bukidnon gave rise to a good number of environmentalists among CSOs and the local church, including the late Fr. Neri.
Among the most vocal today is Fr. Reynaldo (Rey) Raluto. Born and raised in the small town of Pangantucan in 1969 until he went to college, he must have observed the changing landscape of not just his hometown but also the whole province.
After the San Fernando People Power took place, many of the church people across the diocese, led by their bishop then, Bishop Gaudencio Rosales, were impressed by this show of ecological concern on the part of ordinary folks. A number joined the barricades in San Fernando. The anti-logging sentiment then spread to other parishes.
These events helped galvanize Fr. Raluto’s ecological interest.
In 1987, he entered Pope John XXIII pre-college seminary in Malaybalay, and the seminarians got to know about People Power. As the years passed by, his ecological interest deepened.
Later, he was sent to San Jose Seminary to study towards earning a Bachelor in Sacred Theology with the Loyola School of Theology (LST) and also an MA in Philosophy and Theology at Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU).
Returning to his diocese after his ordination in 2000, he took on a number of assignments even as his ecological advocacy deepened. After a few years of active ministry, he was sent to do his PhD in Theology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. His dissertation was “To Struggle for Human and Ecological Liberation in the Philippine Context.”
The choice of this topic cemented Fr. Raluto’s commitment to advance ecological awareness and action.
After finishing his PhD in 2011, he was assigned to teach at the St. John Vianney Theological Seminary (SJVTS) in Cagayan De Oro, where he served as Academic Dean from 2011 to 2021. He continues to teach at SJVTS until today.
With a desire to have his dissertation read by more people, he had this published as a book. In March 2015, the Ateneo de Manila (ADMU) Press published his first book entitled “Poverty and Ecology at the Crossroads: Towards an Ecological Theology of Liberation in the Philippine Context.”
The main theme of the book echoes Pope Francis’ assertion that the poor in the world today are both the poor planet and the poor people who are victimized by climate change.
Since 2022, Fr. Raluto has also been assigned as parish priest of the Parish of Jesus Nazareno in Libona, Bukidnon, where there are indigenous communities. Like his stint at SJVTS, he has continued providing ecological education through seminars, homilies, and discussions. He also encouraged the people to plant trees and make sure these grow taller. At SJVTS, he led the seminarians in planting native trees. Years from now, SJVTS will be surrounded by a mini forest.
Meanwhile, ecological advocacy has shifted towards action to fight for climate justice. The injustice brought about by climate change has led to unequal impact. The countries of the Global South, which have contributed little to the greenhouse gases, have suffered more in terms of disasters. These nations are the most vulnerable to disasters and have little capacity to deal with disaster response and management.
The industrialized nations of Europe and North America (and now China and India) continue to be the main culprits with their continuing production and consumption of fossil fuels (gas, oil, and coal). Thus, a need to fight for climate justice.
The UN and countries of the Global South, including the Philippines, need to pressure the industrialized countries to fulfill their promises under the Paris Agreement in 2015 to cut down on their fossil fuel consumption and to give more aid to Third World countries so they have more funds for the needed disaster response as well as to have more alternative sources of energy e.g. solar and wind power.
However, the citizenry can do their share of combating climate change through reducing their carbon footprint. There are many ways in which ordinary citizens can be environmentalists. We can pressure our government to stop mining, logging, and the building of infrastructure (e.g., dams) that destroy the environment and its biodiversity.
We can join protest actions. We can segregate our garbage, make compost for our gardens, recycle, stop using plastic and use public transportation.
All these require that we become more knowledgeable about what destroys our common home.
Comes now the second book of Fr. Raluto entitled “Integral Ecology Ministry: Doing Ecological Theology and Advocacy in light of Laudato Si’.”
This book provides the reader with a deeper understanding as to how our parishes and church groups can do much more to protect the environment.
As Christians, we need to deepen our theological insights into how we can treasure God’s gift of creation, which can empower us to take more concrete action. This book helps us to deepen such insights.
So dear readers: Find a way to get a copy of this book. Take to heart its ecological messages. And join Fr. Raluto in his crusade to save our common home!
(“Integral Ecology Ministry: Doing Ecological Theology and Advocacy in Light of Laudato Si’ is published by the Mindanao Institute of Journalism)
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