September 9, 2011
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you all to the first Indigenous Peoples’ Regional Assembly, which we convene today.
In convening this assembly, I am particularly grateful to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples for gathering our IP leaders all over Luzon.
We thank the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Department of Tourism, the Department of Education, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the International Labor Organization for supporting this important initiative.
As […]
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August 9, 2011
Mr. President,
Today the international community honors the Indigenous Peoples of the world. Today the struggles of the IPs in the Philippines deserve to be spoken and heard in this august Chamber.
We have begun to make significant strides in protecting the rights of our IPs over the past twenty years. After centuries of disregard, Congress passed a landmark legislation called the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997, which restored the rights of indigenous people over their ancestral domains, upheld […]
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August 8, 2011
Mr. President,
It is a rare occasion that the Senate considers an issue that recalls the broad sweep of developments in the last century if only to remind us that it proved to be one of the most violent periods of human history. It was characterized by two world wars, the Korean war, the Vietnam war and its 50 years toward the beginning of the present millennium pervaded by the tension of the Cold War that constantly pushed humanity to […]
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August 3, 2011
(Standard Greetings)
Statistics dominate headlines and discourse on the catastrophes of climate change: inches of rainfall, damages to properties and businesses, costs of livestock and crop destruction, and so on. These are the vital yet ultimately impersonal figures that are often presented to us. Even tolls on people displaced and killed remain just that-disquieting but faceless numbers.
Our exhibit, co-organized by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities headed by Red Constantino, hopes to […]
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July 26, 2011
This forum could not come at a more opportune time. Yesterday, we heard the State of the Nation Address (SONA) from our President. I laud President Aquino for speaking on good governance, social protection, and socio-economic gains, among other successes. However, as UNISDR Regional Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation for the Asia and the Pacific, I would appreciate the SONA more if the President asserted more clearly how the government will pursue disaster risk reduction and […]
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