Filipinos seek 10M supporters for pope’s climate petition

MANILA, Philippines - Filipino Catholic members promised to gather 10 million signatures to support Pope Francis’s climate petition.

Filipino members of Global Catholic Climate Movement (GCCM) seek to contribute half of the 20 million targeted by GCCM and its partner since there are 76 million Catholics who follow papal edicts in the country.

“We’re getting signatures as a representation of the Catholic’s voice on the issue of climate change, especially in pushing global leaders to urgently act,” said the local coordinator for the GCCM, Lou Arsenio, in an interview with The Guardian.

The climate petition of Pope Francis that aims to pressure countries to drastically cut carbon emissions to raise the global temperature below the dangerous 1.5 degree Celsius threshold will be handed to world leaders at a Paris climate summit in November.

Pope Francis also asks the countries to provide aid to poorest countries and let them cope with climate change.

In his June encyclical on the environment, Pope Francis said that the world must respond to climate change for failure to act on it would shows undeniable risk to a “common home” that is beginning to resemble a “pile of filth.”

Father Edwin Gariguez said that Pope Francis’s encyclical prompted Catholic Filipino environmentalists since its mandates are clear and unequivocal.

“Pope Francis was able to contextualize the discourse on a much wider framework to point out the interconnectedness of everything. It is now easy to realize that the ‘cry of the Earth is the cry of the poor’,” Gariguez said.

 “When you see 300 priests in Lipa, for example, going out to protest against the coal-fired power plant, I’m sure they are more than inspired by the pope’s encyclical to take on this stand,” he added.

The encyclical of the pope affirms that the Philippine Catholic church had long been a witness to the link between environment and poverty since it had been established by the Spanish colonialist in the 16th century and fought environmental battles.

Arsenio, also an ecology ministry coordinator of  the Archdiocese of Manila, also cited that Filipinos are aware of the disasters caused by climate change as they experience it in their country with flash floods, landslides plaguing Manila and provincial areas during rainy season. He also noted that recent cases of food poisoning may be blamed on rising temperatures.

Meanwhile, Gariguez, also the executive director of the church’s National Secretariat for Social Action said the church is already addressing the climate change and its impact on poverty through rehabilitation programs and promotion of sustainable farming techniques.

In 2013, the Philippines was struck by typhoon "Haiyan" that killed almost 6,000 people and compelled Pope Francis to visit the country in January to console its survivors.