The rise and fall of a chainsaw tower
Daniel Nelson
A tower of 700 captured chainsaws is one of the most striking images in Delikado, a documentary about a group of environmental defenders in The Philippines.
The saws have been seized by the small NGO on the island of Palawan. “I caught my first chainsaw and … surrendered it to the authorities,” recalls group leader Bobby Chan. “And then after three months I caught it again.”
All they [the illegal loggers] had to do was pay a bribe and get the chainsaw back, he realised. “So I decided that’s the last time I will surrender a chainsaw to the authorities in this province.”
The tower is a symbol of the group’s success in the face of great danger - one of the defenders is shot dead by poachers during the making of the film - and is displayed in a small ramshackle museum Chan has set up at their HQ in a seaside village.
But the tower is also a symbol of the obstacles the group faces, and perhaps of a losing battle.
The NGO is on one side of an environment vs development battle. The other side is represented by poor Filipinos who fell trees and kill fish with poison for little pay, by the unseen barons who rake in the profits from the illicit businesses, and by the politicians who facilitate the destruction of Nature in the name of economic progress.
The film is exciting, heart-warming and heart-rending. It follows the unarmed group members (“This is actually a war for us”) as they track, creep up, surround and rush the cutters and fishers, some of whom are armed and protected by lookouts.
They use citizens’ arrests. “It’s meta-legal,” says Chan, a lawyer.
Its depth comes from the scenes of the members’ family lives, one of whom is an ex-soldier, who enlisted to fight the guerrillas and halt deforestation. “We never expected that one day we’d learn that our officials were the ones making the deals. That’s how illegal logging started in Palawan.
“I’ll risk my life to make up for all the things I’ve done wrong.”
The politics comes from a battle between two women fighting to become mayor, one rooted in the local people and the environment, the other lined up with business and the Palawan governor, who is aligned with the then President Rodrigo Duterte (“Duterte Harry”), a foul-mouthed, bullying populist who threatens the defenders, by name, with death on TV.
Amidst the scenic beauty of the forests and seas, and the burgeoning tourist industry, the pressure builds on the activists and their families. Land-grabbing and greed are rampant. Threats and intimidation are rife, the perpetrators are ruthless; it is highly risky to stand in the way. The police are on the side of authority. Human Rights Watch named The Philippines as the world’s deadliest place for defenders.
Chan wavers. He doesn’t want more deaths on his conscience. But somehow you know that the defenders will not give up. ”If we cannot defend the people defending the planet, how can we protect the planet?”
After completion of the film, three more campaigners and lawyers are murdered. And the Palawan administration confiscates the chainsaw tower.
At the end, the camera in this moving documentary pulls up and away from a handful of diminishing figures walking single-file through the verdant forest.
The struggle continues.
* Delikado is showing at the Curzon Bloomsbury on Friday 7-Sunday 9 April
+ The film comes with free resource materials to support those who want to bring the transformative power of documentary into community, classrooms, and libraries. Explore discussion guides, reading lists, and lesson plans here.