Keynote Address
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At “A Gathering for Human and Ecological Security” Conference on Population, Environment and Peace

[Delivered at the PICC, Roxas Boulevard, Manila, June 16, 1995]

A gathering to secure
the future

WE MEET TODAY at a historic convergence of global events dedicated to the survival and well-being of peoples and nations around the world.

This Gathering for Human and Ecological Security fulfills the promise of earlier events while laying the groundwork for another global conference scheduled two years hence.

We draw strength and impetus from three earlier conferences that revolutionalized our view of the world and how to care for it—as well as our view of the human person and how to empower him or her.

Human development and sustainable development

This gathering proceeds from the compelling concept that human development is inextricably linked with sustainable development, as enunciated by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit, held three years ago in Rio de Janeiro.

We remain convinced more than ever by the global consensus arrived at in the International Conference on Population and Development, held in September 1994 in Cairo: that there is a close connection among the factors of population, economic deprivation, consumption and production patterns, and environment.

Finally, from the World Summit on Social Development, held in Copenhagen last March, we reaffirm the value of harnessing the productive capacities of our peoples through social integration—in a global effort to reduce poverty substantially.

The human agenda

All these three major international conferences called for programs of action that vigorously pushed the human agenda in every community, national and international endeavor. These historic meetings emphasized the intimate relationship between environmental care and human development goals, with one strengthening the other.

And these same gatherings called for initiatives by participating nations to transform visions into realities, and concepts into deeds.

Today, in this assembly, we will be doing just that. As host country, the Philippines will be one of the first countries to give substance to the promise of all participating nations that they harness their institutions and people to carry out programs identified in those conferences.

Yet we will, in fact, be doing much more. We will contribute new visions and insights, born of our collective experience, to subsequent gatherings of the family of nations. Notably, the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations later this year, the Second International Forum on the Culture of Peace, and the 1997 Global Charter.

The culture of peace

One such insight is our view that we can only secure our common future; we can only meet the aspiration of the human person to dignity and opportunity; and we can only and truly preserve our planetary home—if we can re-establish, maintain and enhance the culture of peace.

In this gathering, we introduce peace as the third pillar in the all-important trilogy—population, environment and peace—that will, therefore, achieve for all of us real human and ecological security.

There is no doubt that we stand on the brink of disaster if we do not do something fast about several threats to our very existence; or on the brink of opportunity if we use our God-given and collective wisdom to recapture, finally, humankind’s active stewardship of the earth.

On a global scale, we will collectively address the main causes of poverty of peoples and nations—the unequal sharing of the world’s resources and income, lopsided trade and commerce arrangements, and inequitable socioeconomic policies of countries.

For instance, if one fifth of the world population controls 70 to 85 percent of the world’s income, that leaves only 15 to 30 percent to the rest of the world’s inhabitants. I am sure you will agree that this has to change, and that change must begin right here in this gathering.

Dealing with population growth

On a national scale, here in the Philippines, we are dealing resolutely with poverty, since 40 percent of Filipinos still remain below the poverty line. We have improved mother-and-baby health conditions, and increased the average annual family income. We will intensify the implementation of our social reform agenda, now fortified by newly enacted laws especially in education, housing, social security, job generation and disaster mitigation. And we will improve income distribution through agrarian reform and countryside development.

On a global scale, we will assume this take-charge posture in dealing with an overcrowded planet with a shrinking carrying capacity. We now have a global population of 5 billion—and this is growing annually by a total of 90 million. That yearly growth is even more than the present population of the Philippines.

The Philippines has a population of some 67 million, making us the 14th most populous country in the world, and the eighth in the whole of Asia. With a yearly population growth rate of about 2.2 percent, the Philippine population is expected to reach 79 million at the turn of the century.

We have placed our Philippine population program on a more rational and objective basis, which contains many of the recommendations of the Cairo Conference, especially those recognizing the intimate relationship of family, population, resources and the environment.

The threat to ecosystems

Our ecosystems, on a global scale, are also threatened by the destruction of forest cover, confirmed by a study that 15 percent of the earth’s forest species will disappear in just a quarter of a century if nothing is done about it.

In his book, Preparing for the 21st Century, Paul Kennedy pictured how fragile our planetary home is and how vulnerable we all are. He said:

The earth, unlike its neighboring planets, is covered with a film of matter called life. The film itself is exceedingly thin, so thin that its weight can scarcely be more than one-billionth that of the planet which supports it. . . . Within that film, coexisting alongside plants, animals, insects, crops, and other organisms, is the human race.

With the present alarming situation and with a picture of our common vulnerability, our shared stewardship of the only home we have got has become all the more crucial. We have only one choice if we have to preserve life: for all to play our role resolutely as earth stewards with an international network as this one helping to provide the needed directions.

In the Philippines, we are doing something about our rapid loss of 119,000 hectares of forest cover every year. We have noted that, out of the 30 million of forested area in the past, only 6.5 million hectares have remained.

Resolute measures have been introduced, including a massive reforestation and greening program, a selective ban on logging and the involvement of communities in forest protection.

An elusive peace

On a global scale, as we all know, peace remains elusive. Even as we have reached the end of the Cold War, regional, fratricidal and ethnic wars still plague a number of countries. The magnitude of human losses is disturbing; from four to six million people, 90 percent of whom are civilians, have died in these endless conflicts.

The victims of war are not only those who died but those who have had to leave their conflict-ridden countries to become refugees in other lands.

Undoubtedly the absence of real peace and the outbreak of armed conflicts are a real threat to human security. This gathering has decided correctly to address this issue.

Our peace process

In the Philippines, we have initiated a peace process that involves the entire concerned citizenry to bring back our dissident brothers into the mainstream of civil society. We have reached out to insurgents espousing different ideologies and causes against the Government and succeeded in bringing them to dialogues for peace, where a spirit of talk-talk instead of fight-fight prevails.

Our peace initiatives have made significant headway toward a principled and peaceful resolution of armed conflicts with neither blame nor surrender aforethought, but with dignity and a just peace for all concerned. To get to the root of the conflict, we have forged a new social compact for a just, equitable, humane and pluralistic society.

Global view, local action

To our global experts who flew in to join us at the conference, our expression of thanks will be shown in the earnestness and energy by which we will take to our tasks to find and build a consensus on how to take charge of our common future.

To our national and local leaders, on whose shoulders falls the common responsibility to take charge of our national destiny, our survival and security, consider this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view things globally and take action locally.

This gathering once again proves that we are all connected in one circle of life, and that we belong to the same family with a common beginning and common destiny.

At this historic junction, we hope to enhance the promise of past assemblies and provide a new vision for subsequent assemblies of concerned leaders all over the world. This, however, could happen only:

If we enter new frontiers of human creativity to find fresh solutions to our problems;

If we test the outer limits of our will and energy to get the job done; and

If we discover a newfound faith in one another, so that—with the divine power guiding us—we can indeed have dominion over all the earth for the people’s welfare.

And as stewards of this earth and of our country the Philippines, we shall be committed not to exploit but to preserve it; not to assault but to nurture it; and not to drain it of its resources but to hand it to the next generation in a much better condition of abundance, beauty and sustainability.

This is the promise of this conference. We, together, will transform this promise into a deeply felt commitment.