Speech

of

His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos

President of the Philippines

At the National Workshop on “Implementing Philippine Agenda 21 for Sustainable Development: Response to the Earth Summit”

[Released on August 31, 1992]

Our environment agenda

FIRST, allow me to commend the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for staging this two-day workshop to plot “Philippine Agenda 21.”

A gathering such as this reaffirms this Administration’s commitment to safeguard our environment, which is after all the foundation of all our economic pursuits. The protection of the Philippine environment had always been among the top five priority programs to be addressed intensively during the first 100 days of my Administration.

Saving Mother Earth: A global concern

The conduct of this national workshop also manifests the confluence of the efforts of Government, the business sector, international financing institutions, and the non-Government and people’s organizations in a more determined and more decisive move to formulate and implement a policy framework for sustainable development.

This is people power at work. This is people power at its best.

Mother Earth is crying out for our help. This is the urgent message that the recent Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil conveyed to all the peoples of the world. It is time to listen to her.

There is now a heightened resolve to shift to practices and norms that are earth-friendly, as institutions and individuals are made aware of the unfavorable effects of uncontrolled development on nature. We expect our combined endeavor to give greater hope for a better world for the coming century.

The Earth Summit was a reaffirmation by the nations of the world to consolidate efforts in saving our ailing planet.

To this cause, the Philippines has actively manifested its unison. The euphoria of the heavily attended Earth Summit may be over, but to us in the Philippines, its massive implications for priority concerns needing action underline the greater need for our national consensus and teamwork.

Heeding the call of environmental consciousness

The environment-development challenges that confront our country must be matched with our single-minded resolve for action. Today’s two-day workshop is the first step.

My response to the collective output of this workshop will be straightforward. I don’t want to lose time and find our people and our environment suffering even more from the residuals of our industrial activities or from the deterioration of our natural resources. These problems have worsened through the decades. The result is that more must be done to address these environmental challenges we are faced with today.

To ensure that the commitments made at Rio de Janeiro, and the implications of the Earth Summit to the Philippines are implemented, periodically monitored and coordinated at the global level, I have signed an executive order creating a Philippine Council for Sustainable Development. This will be a multisectoral body, to be chaired by NEDA, with the DENR as the vice-chairman, and will be composed of other departments and representatives from the NGO community. The order also mandates the council to call upon all sectors of society to adopt Philippine Agenda 21, which is the product of this workshop, as the policy framework for sectoral program planning by the respective disciplinary groups concerned.

I am directing NEDA also to integrate this Philippine Agenda 21 into the updated Philippine Medium-term Development Plan for 1993-98.

With the devolution of powers to Local Government units by virtue of the Local Government Code, I further direct the integration of Philippine Agenda 21 into the plans and programs of Local Government units at all levels.

I urge the translation of sustainable development goals and objectives not only within the DENR but also in all Government and private instrumentalities, into specific institutional action and budget plans, programs and projects. The Philippine strategy for sustainable development, which had been adopted by the Cabinet as early as 1989, should find further expansion and concretization in the process of integrating Philippine Agenda 21 into the various levels of decision-making. While our previous efforts had been largely characterized by advocacy, putting environmentally sound and sustainable policies into the mainstream of national affairs, this year 1992 up to the start of the twenty-first century should witness our determined collective drive to translate such advocacy to more practical and tangible actions.

Safeguarding the ecological balance

To our local and international donors, your financing support will go a long, long way. For heavily indebted as we are, we must invest in the programs needed to rationalize our environment and development dilemma—that is, to alleviate poverty and attain sustainable development while safeguarding the ecological balance.

I hereby appeal to the Senate for its ready support in the ratification of environmental conventions to which the Philippines is a signatory, such as the base conventions on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous waste and its disposal, and the London amendments to the Montreal protocol for substances that deplete the ozone layer.

At Rio the Philippines was a signatory to the framework convention on climate change and the convention of biodiversity. These will also require ratification from the Senate. We will continue to recognize and harness to the fullest the capabilities inherent in major groups like our women, children and youth, our indigenous brothers and sisters, non-Government organizations, local authorities, business and industry, farmers and fishermen in the complicated and difficult struggle to address the forces that impede sustainable development for the Philippines.

I also urge upon all of you the continuous professionalization of the career environmental service in the Government and private sectors. In the face of grinding poverty and dwindling resource base for our economy, let us be relentless in fighting corruption and inaction, which are among the worst crimes against our people.

Surmountable task

The task of saving the earth from further plunder and destruction is difficult—but it need not be insurmountable.

And while the challenges that we face are mainly not of our choice, no nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden of protecting and preserving the earth as the Philippines is. We have shown this during the recent Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, when the Earth Savers Movement of Fr. James Reuter made such an impact on the convention.

The magnitude of the actions that we should take and keep pursuing should be no less than the size of the problems that face us, whether among Filipinos or among nations, because in the final analysis our most basic link is that we all inhabit this earth. We breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortals.

Together let us, as one people, build our future, one that is based on the foundation that sustains life itself—a world free from environmental death.

Source: Presidential Museum and Library