SENATE OFFICE, Manila, April 20, 2011-As we celebrate this year’s Earth Day, Senator Loren Legarda, who chairs the senate committee on climate change urged Filipinos to include in their Holy Week reflection the state of the environment and how they can improve the way they treat Mother Earth, saying that there is a need to rekindle our relationship with nature as stewards of God’s creation.
Legarda encouraged Filipinos to reflect on how we treat the benefits we receive from our natural resources, lamenting that formerly abundant and healthy environment that were blessed but now are in a sad and waning condition.
She said that we have destroyed the balance of our ecosystem to provide for our overly consumptive population at the expense of depleting the capital-the land, air, water that took billions of years to form and perfect, adding that we have polluted the air that we breathe and we are now in alarming levels that we have exposed ourselves to respiratory and pulmonary diseases.
“What have we done with the source of life in our waters,” she asked, saying that we did not only use it and used it up. We even dirtied it.
“What about our minerals that took 55 million years to form? We intend to extract these minerals in 30 to 50 years even if future generations of Filipinos will have nothing left,” she furthered.
Legarda said that Filipinos should not wait for another natural hazard or witness another environmental disaster of biblical proportion to understand the current sad state of the Philippine environment.
“It is time to reflect and work out in our own and simple yet big and determined steps to help resuscitate our ailing environment,” she said.
Legarda added that we have to strive to make a positive impact on our natural resources and let us turn away from extractive and consumptive way of living, may it be by saving on fuel, energy and water consumption, recycling, proper solid waste management, or growing trees.
The Holy Week is observed in the most unique way in the Philippines for decades and even centuries where the majority of the people celebrated it in total fervor and solemnity in remembering the passion and death of Jesus Christ.
