Hot climate: Loren

If ever there is a legislator whose passion is saving the environment, it would be Sen. Loren Legarda. Out of her mouth and press bureau comes messages on climate change. Her legislative accomplishments are topped by RA 9728, or “Climate Change Act of 2009”; Resolution No. 156, which created a senate standing committee on climate change and Resolution No. 157, which created the oversight committee on climate change; the Clean Air Act; the Environmental Awareness Education Act, the Renewable Energy Act, and the Solid Waste Management Act.

That’s not to say her concerns have been just climate change and nothing else. She authored laws for senior citizens, barangay livelihood and skills training, the Magna Carta for micro, small and medium enterprises, anti violence against women and children, anti-child labor law, the Philippine ear research institute, universal newborn hearing screening and intervention act, the Philippine tropical fabric law, and the Eid’ul First holiday law, and others.

On Dec. 1, 2008, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) named Loren as the UN Regional Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation for Asia and the Pacific.

Loren‘s story is documented in a book titled “Redefining Development: The Living Advocacy of Loren Legarda, UNISDR Champion for Asia-Pacific” which will be launched October 11 at the Makati Shangrila Hotel. Authored by Loren’s official biographer, Maria Rosa “Bing” N. Carron, the book of seven chapters and 190 pages marks her journey as environment saving champion from visiting victims of typhoons and other natural calamities, and meeting heads of state and world leaders.

The book, says Loren, is meant “to inform and inspire world leaders, policy and decision makers, and the citizenry on where we are now and what can be done by governments, business and civil society to reduce disaster vulnerability and build community resilience to the undesirable effects of our changing climate.”

Last month, Loren also launched “Buhos,” a documentary about climate change as “a significant contribution in educating the entire nation on the devastating impact of climate change and global warming to our country,” said Loren. It was too bad that, she said, “It had to take Ondoy, Pepeng and Basyang for us to realize that climate change is not just a scientific and environmental issue, but an all-encompassing threat to our basic human rights — to food, potable water, shelter, decent livelihood and life itself.”

Loren collaborated with acclaimed Filipino filmmaker and 2009 Cannes best director Brillante Mendoza, to produce a visually interesting, informative, and moving documentary. Said Loren: “Buhos successfully demystifies global warming by bringing it down to the level of day-to-day living, offering easy to understand scientific explanations of greenhouse gases and climate change, as well as realistic ways of addressing this clear and present danger, in the context of Filipino living.”

A year earlier, she produced the docu-drama Ulan sa Tagaraw, a children’s animation movie, Ligtas Likas, and a United Nations documentary, Now is the Time.

Beyond her call of duty, Loren continues an extensive tree planting program through Luntiang Pilipinas and mobilizes humanitarian aid to disaster affected and poverty-stricken communities through Lingkod Loren.

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President Aquino III’s bringing home the bacon, i.e., the Millennium Challenge Corporation grant of $434 million has triggered off a debate on reproductive health — and it isn’t healthy, if you know what I mean. There’s a kris-crossing of swords and words between those who think Noynoy should be excommunicated for his un-Catholic (the Philippine brand) stand on reproductive health, and those who praise Noynoy to high heavens for being head of state who realizes the need to look at the issue of planned population management rationally.

What stoke the fire of debate was a statement made by a CBCP official of the possibility of the president being excommunicated for his anti-Roman Catholic church position of making families choose their own family planning method. The church only approves the natural family planning method.

Reproductive health advocates are apprehensive that the debate could derail the passage of the RH bill in the 15th Congress.

This early, protest rallies have been held by anti and pro RH advocates, one bearing placards showing ugly pictures of fetuses being aborted, the other has advocates holding up condoms with the message, “Don’t let rosaries enter our ovaries.”

On another front, Dr. Bernardo M. Villegas, senior vice president of the University of Asia and the Pacific, praised former Population Commissioner, Dr. Jose S. Sandejas for revealing that “ignorant journalists” and RH advocates had been lying about. Essentially, his piece said that birth control pushers have been “doctoring” figures to show that the Philippine population is exploding.

Today the National Statistical Coordination board is sponsoring a forum on the issue, with Dr. Villegas and Dr. Sandejas as speakers on one side, and demographers who prepared the population project who are experts in the areas of base population, fertility, mortality, and migration on the other side. The experts who will defend the rightness of their statistics are Dr. Josefina Cabigon, of the Philippine Population Institute; Dr. Socorro Abejo of the National Statistics Office; Dr. Zelda Zeblan, of the Demographic Research and Development Foundation, and Dr. Nimfa Ogena, also of UPPI.

Also scheduled this morning is a press conference on the topic, “Church, State and Family Planning: Draw the Line or Toe the Line?” at Anabel’s restaurant on Morato, Quezon City. Speakers will be Dr. Edelina dela Paz, executive director of Health Action Information Network and national coordinator, Catholics for Reproductive Health Movement; Atty. Marlon J. Manuel, counsel for Carlos Celdran (the tourist guide who crashed into a meeting of bishops at the Manila Cathedral and held up a placard with the word, “Damasos” and coordinator, Alternative Law groups, and Rep. Luz Ilagan representing Gabriela Party List and author of one of the six RH bills filed in Congress. Other reactors will be Dr. Junice D. Melgar, executive director of Linangang Kababaihan, and Ben de Leon, president, the Forum for Family Planning and Development, Inc.

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