How an environmental fight 30 years ago reshaped Bolinao

BOLINAO, PANGASINAN — Long before Messenger and Viber became everyday tools of communication, there were handwritten letters, notes scribbled on scraps of paper and messages passed from one person to another.

By today’s standards, those methods may seem slow and primitive. But in the early 1990s, they proved powerful enough to bring people together and rally an entire town against an international consortium planning to build an estimated P11-billion cement plant complex in this northwestern coastal town of Pangasinan.

“Days before the rallies were held, we wrote letters to a contact person in every coastal and upland barangay, informing them about the rally and how many people were expected to attend. On the day of the rally, the people were there,” recalled Margaret Celeste, who headed the Movement of Bolinao Concerned Citizens Inc. (MBCCI), which led the opposition to the cement plant project.

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“They came on their own, even if we did not give them fare money,” she said in a recent interview.

Celeste said the group had no financial backing from any organization. Members often paid out of their own pockets for snacks, transportation and information materials.

“The streamers were made of sacks and other cheap materials,” she shared.

Yet those humble materials carried a message that would eventually reach far beyond Bolinao.

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National attention

While the MBCCI and other groups organized communities in the barangays, the Philippine Daily Inquirer brought the issue to national attention through a three-part series published on Nov. 27, 28 and 30, 1994.

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The articles were titled “Bolinao Folk Up in Arms Against Planned Multinational Cement Plant,” “Health Risks Posed by the Proposed Bolinao Cement Plant Cited,” and “Cement Plant and Marine Research.”

“After the series of articles came out, different national media outlets—television, radio and newspapers—came to the town to cover what was happening,” Celeste recounted.

She added: “They came for the cement plant issue, but it gave us the opportunity to show them the natural resources of the town—the waterfalls, caves and beaches—which were still in their pristine state and which we feared would be destroyed by the cement plant.”

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“I think what they saw convinced them of the need to protect Bolinao from industrialization,” Celeste noted.

Victory

Thirty years later, residents continue to remember the struggle that brought together farmers, fisherfolk, environmental advocates and other townspeople in a prolonged campaign against the project.

The town eventually prevailed when the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, then headed by Secretary Victor Ramos, denied the project’s environmental compliance certificate on Aug. 8, 1996, effectively ending plans for the proposed cement plant.

On Sept. 5, members of the Bolinao Environmental Advocacy Movement (BEAM) and the Bolinao Green Warriors gathered to commemorate that environmental victory and reflect on the journey that followed.

“We gathered to celebrate a historic environmental triumph and the journey toward a sustainable tourism legacy,” said Ronaldi Torres, a member of the Bolinao Tourism Council.

The gathering, dubbed “Thanksgiving Day,” carried the theme “From Environmental Victory to Tourism Legacy.”

It began with a Thanksgiving Mass, followed by a fellowship dinner where members of the Green Warriors shared stories of the struggle—their experiences, sacrifices and memories from the years when Bolinao’s future appeared uncertain.

For Celeste, the changes that followed the victory are now visible across the town.

“We have gone a long way, with the town jumping from a fourth-class to a first-class municipality, mostly fueled by the tourism industry that boomed after the threat of the cement plant was gone,” she said.

Continuing unity

But even before the cement plant controversy, Celeste said Bolinao residents had begun to understand the importance of protecting their environment, particularly its rich coastal and marine resources.

A group of fisherfolk had established the Kaisahan ng mga Samahan ng Mamamayan sa Bolinao, a people’s organization focused on community-based coastal resource management, sustainable livelihood initiatives and partnerships in local governance.

The University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute, which maintains a marine laboratory in the town, also helped the municipal government develop its coastal resource management plan and assisted fisherfolk in producing sea cucumbers and other marine products.

Environmental advocacy groups, such as Tanggol Kalikasan and the Haribon Foundation, were likewise active in the town, helping communities deepen their understanding of environmental protection and conservation.

“It was the upland residents, where the quarry sites were supposed to be located, that we had to work double time to reach and inform about the effects of quarrying the 10,000 hectares in five barangays for limestone, the main ingredient in cement,” Celeste said.

The proposed project would have affected homes and farms in upland communities. As residents learned that they could be displaced from their land, more joined the growing movement against the project.

Today, Celeste said, there is much for Bolinao to be thankful for.

Opportunities

The tourism industry that flourished in the years following the environmental victory has created opportunities not only for resort and hotel owners but also for farmers selling their produce, tricycle drivers transporting visitors, vendors and many others whose livelihoods are now linked, directly or indirectly, to the town’s natural attractions.

For many of those who fought the proposed cement plant, the memories remain vivid—the handwritten letters, the makeshift streamers sewn from old sacks, the rallies that drew people from coastal and upland communities, and the uncertainty over what Bolinao might become.

Three decades later, those memories have become part of the town’s story.

In a social media post, Torres said the stories shared during the gathering “reminded us that Bolinao’s tourism legacy was built upon the courage of people who chose to protect its natural heritage.”

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“The victory was yesterday. The responsibility is today. The legacy belongs to tomorrow,” he said. INQ