Tañada, Pacquiao to back People's Survival Fund

MANILA, Philippines - House Deputy Speaker and Quezon Rep Lorenzo Tañada III and Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao teamed up yesterday to drum up support for the immediate passage of a landmark legislation creating the “People’s Survival Fund (PSF)” to help make poor communities resilient to the effects of climate change.

Tañada said that a similar bill was filed in the Senate authored by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

“The PSF can help poor men and women who are farmers build their resilience to the likes of the recent spate of flooding that destroyed crops and now threatens our national food security. We must beat climate change to the punch if we are to beat it at all,” Tañada said.

“To prevent climate change from knocking us out, we need to plan a good defense. The PSF is the only way to defeat an aggressive opponent like climate change,” said Pacquiao, who is among the first members of the House to sign as co-author of the bill.

The lawmakers pointed out that since the start of the year, flooding in different parts of the country has displaced thousands, killed 60 people and destroyed a lot of property and livelihood.

Continuous strong rains, which are unusual for this time of the year, have prevented farmers from planting rice in Palawan, Tañada said.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone, whose province was among those badly hit by floods, backed the bill and called on his colleagues to support it.

The passage of the PSF is an initiative of the “DEPENSA” (defense) campaign, which calls for the government to make the defense of Filipinos against climate change a national priority.

DEPENSA is a joint undertaking of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (iCSC), artists’ group Dakila, and international non-profit organization Oxfam. The group is calling on President Aquino to include the PSF in his administration’s priority bills and for Congress to pass it.