As the world celebrates Earth Day on April 22, three-term Senator, now Deputy Speaker, Loren Legarda called for bolder efforts on climate action amid the country’s ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This pandemic has brought irreversible change in our lives as we know it. With a population of more than 100 million, the national government is focusing on initiatives for economic recovery and vaccination rollout to achieve herd immunity. While the COVID-19 lockdowns have brought about fleeting improvements in greenhouse gas emissions and air quality, these efforts are not enough to reverse the effects of climate change in the country and globally,” Legarda said.
Deputy Speaker Loren Legarda called for greater solidarity, cooperation, and action in enhancing the country’s resilience in light of the intensifying effects of the climate crisis and the crippling effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The massive scale of the climate crisis has never been more evident than today. We have to recognize that our planet is fast declining, as record highs of 2020 as the warmest year and the period 2011 to 2020 as the warmest decade on record, worsening effects of climate change, and economic shocks from this pandemic set us back to achieve our goals on sustainable and resilient development,” said Legarda, a three-term Senator who is also Global Champion for Resilience of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and Commissioner of the Global Commission on Adaptation.
Today is Earth Day, and we are celebrating it at a precarious time when we are witnessing a massive decline in the health of our ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources.
The climate crisis, the state of our plastic pollution, the magnitude of environmental degradation, the crippling pandemic—we need to acknowledge this hard truth: we humans are causing all of this.
This does not only pertain to the current situation we’re in — a global fight against an invisible virus as the world must likewise be assuaged from the threat of climate change and environmental destruction.
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique – Eleven Botika ng Bayan will go on full operation in various health units (RHUs) in the province before the end of this month.
Dr. Feman Rene Autajay, Department of Health (DOH) Team Leader in the province, said residents will now be able to buy their medicines from any of the branches near them. He noted that the Botika ng Bayan is established in municipalities where there are no government hospitals.
“Botika ng Bayan in the RHUs have also been assigned with pharmacists by the DOH,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.
