EcoWaste Coalition Backs Quezon Service Cross for Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago
An environmental health organization has thrown its support
behind a proposal urging President Rodrigo Roa Duterte to confer the country’s
premier recognition to the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago who passed
away on September 29 last year.
In a press statement, the EcoWaste Coalition expressed its support to Senate
Resolutions 508 and 517 filed by Senators Grace Poe and Sonny Angara urging
Duterte to nominate the late senator for conferment of the Quezon Service
Cross, “the highest national recognition of outstanding civilian service in the
gift of the Republic.”
“We join the senators in requesting President Duterte to bestow the award to
Senator Santiago for the exemplary service she rendered as a judge, government
official and legislator. Conferring the nation’s highest award to the late
senator will be a recognition, too, for all women in public service as agents
for change,” said Eileen Sison, President, EcoWaste Coalition.
To date, only five Filipinos --- all men --- have received the Quezon Service
Cross since it was created in 1946, namely, Carlos P. Romulo (1951), Emilio
Aguinaldo (1956), Ramon Magsaysay (1957), Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. (2004) and
Jesse M. Robredo (2012).
Beyond this award, the EcoWaste Coalition urged members of the 17th Congress to
honor Senator Santiago by resurrecting key environmental and health bills she
filed in the 16th Congress that were not consummated.
In line with her “Pledge to Act on Toxic Chemicals to Protect Filipino Women
and Children,” Senator Santiago filed at least 75 bills and resolutions in
the 15th and 16th Congress addressing important chemical, product and waste
issues.
Among the major bills filed by
Senator Santiago that the EcoWaste Coalition would like to see revived, debated
and enacted are the proposed “Pollutant Release and Transfer Registry Act,”
“Total Ban on Single-Use Carryout Plastic Bags Act,” “Toxic Packaging
Prevention Act,” “BPA in Baby Products Prohibition Act,” “Paint Hazard
Reduction Act,” “Computer Recovery and Collection Act,“ and the “Microbeads-Free
Water Act.”
“The passage of the PRTR bill sponsored by Senator Santiago would have resulted
to the establishment of a publicly accessible database that will inform
communities what chemicals or pollutants are being discharged by facilities or
industries, where and how much. Enacting such law will affirm and
uphold the public’s right to know,” said campaigner Abigail Aguilar of
Greenpeace, a member of the EcoWaste Coalition.
PRTRs are catalogues or registries of potentially harmful pollutant releases or
transfers to the environment from a variety of sources, including information
on the nature and quantity of such releases and transfers to the air, water and
soil as well as about wastes transported to treatment and disposal sites,
Greenpeace explained.
“It will be a waste if Senator Santiago’s environmental and health legislative
measures like the PRTR are simply kept in the archives,” Sison said.
Sison also recalled that Senator Santiago twice filed a resolution calling for
a Senate inquiry on the illegal trash imports from Canada “to protect
the country from becoming a global dump for hazardous wastes.”
-end-
Link to the “Pledge to Act on Toxic Chemicals to Protect Filipino Women and Children” signed by Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago:
Links to some of the bills filed by
Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago in the 16th Congress:
Philippine Pollutant Release and
Transfer Registry Act
Total Ban on Singe-Use Carryout Plastic Bags Act
http://www.senate.gov.ph/lis/bill_res.aspx?congress=16&q=SBN-2337
Microbeads-Free Water Act
Toxic Packaging Prevention Act
http://www.senate.gov.ph/lisdata/2164518412!.pdf
Paint Hazard Reduction Act
http://www.senate.gov.ph/lis/bill_res.aspx?congress=16&q=SBN-1807
BPA in Baby Products Prohibition Act
Mandating Employee and Patient Notifications of Environmental, Health and Safety Hazards in Hospitals Act
Comments