SENATE OFFICE, Manila, April 19, 2011- Senator Bong Revilla Jr. who recently filed Senate Resolution 415, which affirmed support to the United Nations (UN) drive on the Decade Action for Road Safety in their worldwide and long decade campaign to curb the 1.3 million deaths from road accidents yearly was approved before the six-week adjournment of the session here to stop the alarming road accidents worldwide.
“The UN Decade of Action for Road Safety which started this year up to 2021 is an opportunity for countries to work together in addressing road traffic deaths and injuries around the world,” Revilla said, adding that the UN reported that there are 1.3 million people who died on the world's roads every year with around 50 million injured or disabled by accidents, plus every year, this costs countries up to 4 percent of their gross national product (GNP).
He said that the Philippines should be actively involved in this undertaking as a member state of the UN and a country with huge record of road accidents where the over-all objective of this global campaign is to halt the alarming rise of road accidents.
Revilla who is a staunched advocate of travel safety and main author of the Helmet Law, the legislative measure that obliged all motorcycle users, including the back riders, to wear standard quality helmets noted that 90 percent of road traffic deaths happened in the low and middle income countries as the primary cause of death of young people all over the world.
He explained that the poor are the most vulnerable victims because they are the ones who live alongside of the national roads and highways. “This epidemic is a killer of the poor,” he said, adding that the children of the poor walk to school and they are at risk of road accidents; thus, we are a country with high poverty rate and we must exert all efforts to address this problem.
Earlier, the United Nations General Assembly last March 2010 proclaimed that the next ten years will be observed as the Decade of Action for Road Safety which aim to provide a framework to countries and communities to increase action to save lives on the world's roads. It is also set that the official launch for the Decade is on May 11, 2011.
Revilla said that road accidents can be prevented and all roads must lead to safety. He furthered that there is a need to act now to save lives of the people. (Jason de Asis)
