*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
When I first read Rainforest Mafias by Human Rights Watch, I did not just see Brazil—I saw us. Every paragraph, statistic, and story about a forest turned to ash and a tribe silenced by greed depicted the Philippines vividly in my mind. What they call organized crime in the Amazon is the same kind of crime that walks among us, shakes our hands, and sits in our offices. It is the same crime that hides behind the word “development,” wears a barong, files a permit, and smiles in ribbon-cuttings. However, it should be understood that this is not your typical corruption. Such behavior is organized environmental crime. It kills quietly, invisibly, and slowly, until one day it wipes out entire communities in a single flood or landslide.
We often refer to "crime against humanity" as if it solely exists in international law textbooks or The Hague's courtrooms. We think of genocide, torture, or war crimes—those that leave behind blood and ruins. But the destruction of our forests, the poisoning of our rivers, and the mining of our mountains are also crimes against humanity, just written in a different language. They kill through landslides, starvation, sickness, and displacement. The victims are the living and the unborn, as the earth that should have cradled them is dying.
We live in a time when society recognizes illegal drugs, theft, and murder as punishable offenses. They are written clearly in our Revised Penal Code. Nevertheless, the crimes that devastate the very foundation of life—our mountains, our forests, our air—are dismissed as administrative violations, paperwork infractions, or “environmental issues.” The truth is harsher: these are crimes against Mother Earth and, by extension, against humanity itself.
When the floodwaters of Bulacan rise, when the mountains of Benguet crumble, when the rivers of Marikina choke on silt and garbage, these are not “natural disasters.” They are the aftermath of organized plunder. The same syndicate that kills without firing a single bullet is responsible for the illegal mining operations that hollow out the earth, the quarrying that eats into our hillsides, and the flood control projects that exist only on paper. Every collapsed home, every drowned child, every displaced farmer is part of their silent casualty count.
I have seen how these crimes are hidden behind layers of bureaucracy and politics. Some call it “business,” others call it “progress.” But progress that buries people in mud is not progress—it is profiteering. These syndicates are not merely stealing public money; they are stealing our right to live safely on our own land. They are robbing us of breathable air, fertile soil, and a stable climate. They are jeopardizing our children’s future.
What makes this crime so sinister is its invisibility. This crime does not occur overnight; it gradually unfolds. The cutting of trees seems harmless until a whole mountain slides down. The quarrying looks routine until a flood wipes out a town. The dolomite project appears cosmetic until the corals die and the bay suffocates. We call these “projects,” but they are actually executions—of our ecosystems, our dignity, and our sense of accountability.
When we speak of law enforcement, we often limit our imagination to drug syndicates, smugglers, or terrorists. But who investigates the plunder of the mountains? Who arrests those who sign the permits that kill rivers? Who brings legal action against the officials who sell off our forests to the most lucrative bidder? These people operate in broad daylight, in suits and with escorts, and they call their crime “policy.”
I have worked with honest men and women in uniform who fight organized crime every day. But there is another war that we are not fighting vigorously enough—the war to protect our environment from institutionalized greed. The so-called “environmental violations” are not minor—they are systemic assassinations of our country’s natural body. If humanity cannot survive without the environment, then every crime against nature is a crime against humanity.
It is time to widen our definition of justice. The International Criminal Court may define crimes against humanity through mass killings and persecution, but in moral reality, the destruction of our environment is just as deadly. When people drown in floods caused by illegal quarrying, when families die under landslides from deforested slopes, and when children breathe the polluted air of our cities, they too are victims of man-made atrocities. The only difference is that their killers wear smiles and hold contracts instead of weapons.
In truth, we are facing a new kind of organized crime—one that no police force alone can defeat. It requires moral courage, political will, and public awakening. It requires a government that treats a fallen tree as seriously as a murdered man, because both are signs that something sacred has been violated. We cannot continue to dismiss these issues by simply asserting that "it's just business" when the actions of the business are harming our nation.
The Amazon taught us that impunity breeds destruction, and destruction breeds death. We are no different. The floods, the landslides, the dead rivers—they are our warning signs. They are the cries of a country bleeding beneath our feet. If we do not act, the next generation will inherit not a homeland, but a crime scene.
The time has come to recognize environmental destruction for what it truly is: not a side issue, not a regulatory concern, but a crime against life itself. The Earth is not our property—it is our partner in existence. When we destroy it, we destroy ourselves. And when we tolerate those who do, we become accomplices to a slow, collective suicide.
Perhaps one day, our laws will evolve to call this situation what it truly is—ecocide—and punish those who profit from the death of nature as they would punish mass murderers. Until then, we—the citizens, teachers, soldiers, and parents—must witness and defend this wounded land.
While the Earth may not speak in our language, it still cries in floods, shouts in landslides, and weeps in every dying tree. And if we
still refuse to listen, it will one day deliver its own verdict—against us all.
