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Legislators play such an important role in setting the pace and in advancing climate policy, as well as in pushing for sustainable solutions to development problems.
In my three six-year terms in the Senate—just to give a quick rundown—we were able to legislate important climate and environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act; the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act; the Clean Water Act; the Renewable Energy Act; [...]
the Climate Change Act, which created the Philippine Climate Change Commission, as well as the People’s Survival Fund, which is our local adaptation fund.
We also enacted the Environmental Education and Awareness Act; National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act; and the Expanded National Integrated Protected Areas System Act, which legislated the protection and preservation of 107 important ecosystems. @DENROfficial
In my last term as Senator, I chaired 3 Senate Committees—Foreign Relations, Climate Change, and Finance—and in these capacities, I sponsored our concurrence in the ratification of the Paris Agreement.
I also recommended changes in our govt’s national budget to enshrine adaptation and mitigation provisions in our government’s national budget.
One of the bills we are prioritizing in the House of Representatives is a national ban on single-use plastics, as part of the whole suite of solutions we will need to address the problem, including establishing Extended Producer Responsibility [...]
improving waste management, incentivizing consumers, retailers, and manufacturers, exploring alternatives, and raising awareness and changing behaviors.
Another bill I filed recently seeks to implement an ecosystem and natural accounting system—the proposed Philippine Ecosystem and Natural Capital Accounting System or PENCAS Law of 2021.
You know how conventional national income accounting works: the value of goods and services produced in a country is aggregated and formulated into development indicators like Gross National Product and Gross Domestic Product, which then serve as measures of economic performance.
Though these indicators are useful to a degree, they don’t give us the full picture.
They don’t take into account the consumption benefits of products and amenities provided by the natural environment, waste disposal services, and pollution, which are part of marketed commodities but are not valuated and reflected in income accounting.
