Maraming salamat, Kalihim Angel Alcala. Chairman-mayor Mel Mathay of Metro Manila and Quezon City; Undersecretary Ric Umali; Undersecretary Ben Malayang; Assistant Secretary Manny Gonzales; mga katulong sa ating pamahalaan; mga piling panauhin, our special guests; mga kababayan, ladies and gentlemen.

You know I like that story of Manny Gonzales about the bible and the first illegal loggers and the first, the early Department of Environment and Natural Resources. But maybe he failed to mention, I know this is true, that when all that was happening with Noah, there was an angel hovering around. And not only was that angel around but the angel had some messengers, si Malayang, si Manny at si Carding.

But today is, in fact, to me a very historical occasion. Because just two days ago, we celebrated the 95th year of the First Philippine Republic. Although that republic was short-lived, it gave us a glorious first taste of a nation’s inalienable right to shape its own destiny — a right we earned through a revolution.

Today we launch another revolution — less bloody of course but no less important — for another worthy prize.

Today, we start the Ecological Revolution of 1998 or Ecorev ’98, to win for future generations their inalienable right to live in a country that has not squandered its natural heritage. This means a country whose air is fit to breathe, whose waters are fit to drink, whose fields will gladly bear crops, and whose seas will teem with fish.

In 1998, I hope that Secretary Alcala and Mayor Mathay will be able to drink the water from the pond in front of us. Puwede naman dagdagan ng disinfectant or chlorine.

A country where forests will have regained their former lushness.

A country whose rivers will have returned to their clear, swift, sweet-smelling glory.

A country whose endangered wildlife will have recovered some of their old numbers.

Of course, we cannot pretend that we can bring back the past. A great part of our natural heritage may have already been lost forever.

Yet we should be encouraged by other countries’ successful efforts to clean up their environment and save their natural resources. Their experiences have shown that while it may take much to turn back the hands of time, it can be done.

Singapore, for instance, has restored fish and marine life to the once heavily polluted Merlion River.

After decades of absence, the wolf has returned to Yellowstone National Park.

Between 1970 and 1985, Sweden cut sulfur dioxide emissions by over two-thirds. And Germany achieved the same level of reduction within a third of that time, between 1983 and 1988.

These success stories were achieved through a determined application of a package of remedies. Many of the remedies were radical, unconventional, indeed revolutionary.

They involved a drastic change in individual, social and economic behavior — starting with the discipline that inhibits people from dumping garbage into streets, creeks and empty lots. Let’s keep this in mind, we, Filipinos.

Our country faces environmental dangers from many different sources.

We have lost three-fourths of our forest cover to overlogging.

Our rivers, lakes and seas are being poisoned by sewage, industrial waste, mine tailings, pesticide run-offs and soil and silt from denuded watersheds.

Seventy percent of our coral reefs are severely damaged.

Two-thirds of our mangrove areas have been lost.

Red tide is affecting more and more coastal communities.

And many wildlife species — most of them unique to our country, such as the Philippine Eagle, the Philippine Tarsier, the Calamian Deer, the Palawan Peacock-pheasant, the Sail-finned Lizard, and the Saltwater Crocodile — are in danger of extinction.

Do not believe that Secretary Alcala will fight all crocodiles. There is that kind that he will fight. But he also loves crocodiles and he will seek to preserve them, especially the saltwater kind.

I believe that the words chidingly spoken by the 1970 Stockholm Convention — the first “Earth Summit” — can be literally applied to us Filipinos. Those words said: “we have forgotten how to be good guests, and how to walk lightly on earth as its other creatures do.”

Nowhere in this world of ours is this heavy-footedness more evident than here in metro manila.

The air pollution in the city is many times over the maximum tolerable limit. And if you go up to Antipolo, which I have done many times, you will be greatly impressed and distressed by the appalling smog that hangs over Metro Manila.

But nothing serves as a more repugnant symbol of how we’ve abused our natural heritage than the Pasig River which used to be so clean, beautiful and sweet-smelling during the time of Jose Rizal. Many songs in fact were written in celebration of its beauty and of its unequalled role in our culture and history.

Yet today the Pasig is nothing more than an open sewer — sending up its putrid stench of domestic and industrial effluents. I know whereof I speak — the Pasig being only a few meters from my office window. Sa bagay may aircon ako, pero nakakaamoy pa rin.

The time for an ecological revolution has come.

As Francis Bacon said, “he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils… For time is the greatest innovator.”

And speaking of time, it is surely no accident that this particular ecological revolution which will end officially in 1998 — the centennial of our independence, is the kind of a new revolution that we need and must launch.

There is something natural and correct in the way these two revolutions — one political, the other ecological — are linked together, although a hundred years apart.

It clearly supports what environmentalists like to point out that all life is interconnected, that everything is bound in a continuum of cause and effect.

Let me therefore end this message with the words of Chief Seattle, an American Indian chief who, in 1852, replied to the then American President’s request to buy vast tracks of their tribal lands for white settlers. The Indian chief said and I quote:

“Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect, all are holy in the memory of my people.”

“This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all.”

And the Indian chief continued: “We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it, as god loves us all.”

That was the message more than a hundred years ago of this simple tribal chief of the American Indians which is so relevant even to this day.

And so with these words, I declare the start of our Ecological Revolution of 1998.

Mabuhay ang Eco ’98!

Mabuhay tayong lahat.

Maraming salamat po.