How Safe Is Your School?

It is difficult to describe the challenges our nation faces today. Immense challenges would be an understatement.
 
This year, we have already experienced 25 typhoons, the strongest of which, Typhoon  Yolanda, mercilessly pounded the Philippines so close to the heels of the powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake that rocked Central Visayas.
 
Much has been said about the resilience of the Filipino people to immediately rise up disaster after every disaster.  However, the threat  of natural hazards and extreme weather events  to the survival […]

Speech of Senator Loren Legarda for the 37th General Conference of UNESCO

Speech of Senator Loren Legarda 
for the 37th General Conference of UNESCO
UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France 
 
Policy Statement of the Republic of the Philippines
                                                            
Mr. President of the General Conference,
Madam Director-General,
Distinguished Delegates,
 
The first session of the UNESCO General Conference was held nearly 67 years ago to this date against the backdrop of a world seeking to reconstruct from the ravages of the last world war.  The goal was clear — to prevent the outbreak of another world war.
 
We continue to be faced by wars, some of […]

National Indigenous Peoples Month 2013

Senator Loren Legarda
Privilege Speech on the National Indigenous Peoples Month
23 October 2013 – Senate Session Hall
 
The month of October is celebrated in the Philippines as the National Indigenous Peoples Month and this year, we are invited by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) for a Collective Celebration of the Culture of Indigenous Cultural Communities.
 
We are a historically plural and multi-ethnic society with 110 IP groups, each community possessing its own traditional knowledge and practices, which have shaped our story […]

International Day for Disaster Reduction 2013

SENATOR LOREN LEGARDA
Privilege Speech
International Day for Disaster Reduction 2013
Senate Session Hall
14 October 2013
 
Mr. President,
 
As our nation strives for equitable socio-economic development amid many recurring calamities, it is essential that we preserve our development gains through disaster risk reduction.
 
My advocacies through the years have been founded on this — to protect the environment, to reduce disaster risk, and to adapt to climate change towards a more resilient Philippines.
 
However, with the unabated rise in disaster losses, about 18-fold increase in economic losses […]

Human Face of Floods

 
SENATOR LOREN LEGARDA
Privilege Speech on the Human Face of Floods
Senate Session Hall
September 18, 2013
Stranded commuters, long queues in public transport stations, students wading in flood waters, stalled cars, highways and streets inundated by flood waters, bancas in city streets as a mode of transportation—this has become a usual  scenario as the new normal weather events bring voluminous rains, causing floods of various levels in the metropolis.

Ginoong Pangulo,
 
Normal sa isang nanay na nagtatrabaho ang gumising […]