As identified under ‘Underlying Causes’, another factor that heavily contributes to the environmental disaster in the Philippines is weak governance, mostly arising from corruption. Weeding out corruption from the government is one of the most effective solutions to helping the government reduce the extent of the environmental disaster in the Philippines.
Image Source: Environmentaleconomics.asp
Law teacher reports that encouraging people to adopt environmentally friendly laws require strict enforcement. Indeed, they report that prevention, precaution, polluter pays and substitution are the most effective ways in which strict environmental law enforcement work in any country.
Image Source: Corruption in the government
As such, it is integral that the Philippine government takes this to heart and quickly enforces a corruption-free governing system so as to reap the benefits of a cleaner and greener environment. One of the root causes to the corruption is the fact that very low financial resources are allocated annually to the DENR (Department of Environmental and Natural Resources). The department then has to face a conflict between trying to adequately reward the people working in the department (good salaries) and at the same time, allocate sufficient financial resources to address the environmental problems in the country. As such, corruption evolves as officials want to be adequately rewarded but are unable to be due to the lack of financial means. A bigger budget allocated to the DENR may be effective in curbing this problem of corruption and weak governance.