Environmental impact assessment must keep up with the climate emergency

On World Environment Day, communities around the world continue to resist, adapt, and innovate in the face of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. The Philippines stands as a striking example of all three. At the same time, the country is taking up the burden to accommodate various proposed solutions—large-scale renewable energy farms, forest carbon projects, and mining for energy transition minerals. 

At this critical moment, the Congress is undertaking a long-overdue reform of the country’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) System through the proposed Philippine Environmental Assessment System (PEAS) Act. The bill seeks to replace Presidential Decree No. 1586, which established the EIA system in 1978, requiring projects with potentially significant environmental impacts to undergo assessment. 

The proposed law introduces important reforms, such as assessments for co-located projects and macro-level plans, stronger financial guarantees, and more credible penalties. However, it misses several opportunities to maximize this historic window for environmental governance. 

To contribute to this ongoing conversation, the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC) is launching its discussion paper, "Turning Over a New Leaf: Reforming the Environmental Impact Assessment System in the Philippines.” The paper draws from decades of documented experience to examine the EIA system’s role in shaping environmental governance, its limitations, and opportunities for reform. 

Drawing from this appraisal of the EIA System, LRC brought its concerns to the House Committee on Ecology Meeting on June 1, where the bill was approved, subject to further amendments. We reiterate here our call for a stronger EIA system responsive to the concerns of affected communities. 

An “environment” is not merely Biophysical. 

Often, environmentally critical projects (ECPs) are likewise socially critical, causing impacts such as marginalization and displacement. These are further compounded by human rights violations, with the Philippines ranking as the most dangerous in Asia for environmental defenders, especially for indigenous peoples whose territories are identified as sites for ECPs. For reform to be truly impactful, the EIA system should integrate distinct and mandatory Social Impact Assessments (SIA) and Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIA) based on the International Bill of Human Rights. 

These are strengthened by a total economic valuation (TEV) approach to cost-benefit analysis. Benefits touted by proponents should be weighed against an economic and indigenous valuation of ecosystem benefits, natural assets, and social capital lost or put at risk by the ECP. The DENR is mandated by the Philippine Ecosystem and Natural Accounting System (PENCAS) Act, passed in 2024, to integrate natural capital accounting into the EIA System. 

No Good Local Assessment sans Local Voices 

The EIA system is inherently a planning tool for identifying harms before major commitments are made. In the past five decades, commitments have been made solely by proponents and planners, and harms borne solely by local communities. 

The proposed law should bridge this gap by integrating community-based decision-making, recognizing that EIAs are highly localized assessments and should thus be anchored in local knowledge and concerns. 

We noted that the requirement for “social acceptability,” established since 1992 by administrative issuances, is omitted from the proposed PEAS Act. We envision true public participation to be fulfilled only when its interpretation shifts from consultation and awareness towards meaningful decision-making.

The reform should also respond to glaring issues in transparency. Presently, the right to access vital environmental information suffers under restrictive policies like the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Freedom of Information Manual. The bill risks entrenching this barrier by only mandating the publication of executive summaries, instead of making complete information available for public scrutiny. 

A Modernized EIA system must respond to Future Crises

The Philippines also ranks among the highest in vulnerability to increasing climate and disaster risks. To become an effective planning tool decades into the future, the EIA system must require assessments based on climate risk projections, aside from historical data, ensuring that ECPs are resilient to, or do not exacerbate these risks. 

Furthermore, the proposed EIA system should be anchored in the precautionary principle. As the triple planetary crisis evolves, proponents should be required to prove with scientific certainty that the project doesn’t bring harm to critical ecosystem services, such as disaster risk mitigation, clean and adequate water, and carbon sequestration.

Stronger Guarantees and Real Accountability

As a predictive planning tool, the EIA system should be able to look beyond proposals and plans. We support the current proposal to establish a financial guarantee mechanism and recommend that it be further clarified that the fund can be disbursed upon verified damage rather than on the finality of proceedings, in anticipation of unjust, multi-decade delays in restitution, such as that of the Marcopper case. 

Furthermore, the Philippine EIA System is plagued by corrupt practices such as the manipulation of consultations and assessments, undue influence, and bribery. The proposed PEAS must address this by establishing a direct line of accountability for EIA Preparers in the case of fraudulent, misleading, or negligent reports, as well as for Reviewers that cerfity them despite knowledge of these flaws. 

No Reason to Cut Corners for Efficiency

Despite missing several opportunities for meaningful reform, the bill has already faced multiple challenges on the grounds of corporate and bureaucratic efficiency. There are standing proposals to delete provisions for the re-evaluation of all existing Environmental Compliance Certificates (ECC) and the criminal liability of officers for operating without one. Bureaucratic lag is also cited as a reason to add a “deemed approved” clause, which will allow the automatic issuance of ECCs after a certain period of inaction by EIA Reviewers. 

We are firmly drawing the line against these rollbacks, as well as a dangerous provision in the bill allowing a blanket exemption to the PEAS for government proposals concerning national security. It is apt to remember that the EIA process deals with constitutional rights, which corporations and the government are duty-bound to uphold. If the reform is to be impactful, Congress must ensure the new PEAS does not inherit the present system’s reputation as a rubber-stamping process. 

As the bill moves forward, we anticipate that there will be even steeper hurdles in the upcoming deliberations. This discussion paper is an invitation to all stakeholders to join and shift the discussion from efficiency towards an assertion of rights grounded in deep democracy. 

Read our discussion paper here: