The little town that could: How eco-activists said 'no' to smelting plant in San Juan

New book recounts how ordinary folk banded together to protect their town in 1977.

- Mara Cepeda

It is hard to imagine San Juan's coastline as anything other than a perfect oasis of white, sandy beaches, crystal clear water and crisp sea air.

Things might have turned out very differently in this bustling town in Batangas province, a three-hour drive about 130km south of the capital of Manila.

An alternative version of life in San Juan would have had a huge copper smelting plant disgorging a cocktail of pollutants into the land, sea and air, endangering the local populace and its natural habitats.

This is the fate that San Juan avoided, thanks to the power of collective action by the townsfolk, as chronicled in the book Barako 77: The Story Of Environmental Activism In San Juan, Batangas, which was launched in April.

The tale of how ordinary people turned eco-activists banded together to overturn government plans to build a polluting copper smelter in 1977 is told in the book published by Mrs Ciara Marasigan-Serumgard and her sister-in-law Farrah Rodriguez.

Mrs Serumgard is the granddaughter of the late Horacio Marasigan Sr, the man behind the town's eco-activism movement; the Marasigan family had commissioned historians Karina Garilao, Katherine Lacson and Vincent Bernabe to recount San Juan's story.

The story goes as follows. Back in 1977, gentleman farmer and rural banker Mr Marasigan Sr formed the civic group Concerned Citizens of San Juan, Batangas (CCS) and rallied the people to oppose the construction of a copper smelter in San Juan.

No violence was done and the people won. This was no mean achievement, five years into the repressive era of martial law under the late president Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

Incidentally, barako - the Tagalog word from which the book draws its title - has connotations of masculinity, and refers to the strongly flavoured coffee served in the province.