Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance
Pages 49-63 | Vol. 1 No. 1 | 2021
The Surviving Sunset of Manila Bay and the Ethics of Environmental Justice in Philippine Ecopoetry
Rina Garcia Chua
University of British Columbia, Canada
[email protected]
Abstract: The Philippines, a country rich with natural resources, has taken steps to preserve its environmental megadiversity through the government’s existing environmental laws. However, reality seems to show a glaring disparity between what is being protected and what is being abused. The question is: what is fair to all? This paper’s primary purpose is to explore the aesthetics of local ecopoetry to discover whether the representation of environmental justice in literature can promote ecological fairness in the Third World. Using Hume’s concept of aesthetics to explore the inconsistency between the environmental laws and the message of the selected ecopoems, this study reveals that literature may be an important key to unlocking the solutions to the issue of environmental justice. Moreover, literature may serve as the unheard voice of the abused in the environment and may help pronounce the long-awaited verdict that the law cannot give to achieve environmental justice.
Keywords: aesthetics, ecocriticism, ecopoetry, environmental justice, sustainability
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