Next Philippine leaders urged to prioritize environmental issues

Environmental issues should be a priority for the Philippines’ next set of leaders.

During World Wide Fund for Nature-Philippines’ Shape Our Future: The Countdown to Earth Hour 2022 virtual roundtable discussion on March 26, Earth Hour Philippines national director Angela Ibay said the next leader should focus on implementing green recovery plans, pursue sustainability, and promote local indigenous production.

“Definitely our next leader should be focusing on implementing the laws but I think they should be implementing green recovery plans because we’re still coming out from the pandemic, and those plans should protect our natural resources, pursue sustainability in all of our systems whether it’s food, water, energy, and definitely promote local indigenous production so that we reduce our reliance on external sources,” said Ibay.

“Second, I support that there should be right robust funding and financing for local implementers, so that we can push positive environmental impacts even further,” she added.

Green Thumb Coalition convenor Jaybee Garganera, meanwhile, said they launched a scorecard to measure the candidates’ “green” agenda.

“All of these items—energy, waste, forestry, sustainable agriculture, water, human rights, and sustainable development—these have to be popularized with the candidates,” said Garganera.

“We are entering a social contract with these leaders when we sign our name on the ballot box on May 9. We are contracting them to serve us and we would like the green scorecard to be a part of that contract and hopefully we, as good citizens, can be better in monitoring and being part of the solution,” he said.

The roundtable, which discussed the environmental issues that the next set of leaders of the country should focus on, was also attended by Ten Knots director of sustainability Mariglo Laririt, United Ilijan Agricultural Workers for Sustainable Development president Rodel Cadigal, WWF-PH National Youth Council member and ASEAN Youth Advocates founder Mirus Ponon, and WWF-PH child ambassador Xia Vigor.

The virtual roundtable was held 7:30 p.m. before the global switching off of lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

According to Earth Hour, with this year’s theme “Shape Our Future,” it aims to be a platform to encourage and mobilize collective action for the environment by educating and inspiring everyone, especially government leaders, to act for nature and climate.

GMA supported this year’s Earth Hour celebration, which is spearheaded by WWF Philippines. – RC, GMA News