CLEAN AIR 10+2 – June 14-15, 2011
Theme: “Strengthening Partnerships toward Cleaner Air and Climate Change Action – Focus on Energy and Transport”
The Historic Struggle for Clean Air
Twelve years after the passage of the Republic Act 8749, or the Clean Air Act, we bear witness today to huge strides that the law has generated in protecting the environment and public health.
- We have cleaner fuel today.
- Lead has been removed from gasoline.
- We have seen a significant reduction nationwide in total suspended particulates (TSPs).
- Two-stroke tricycles are no longer being manufactured.
- More robust forms of partnership have emerged among national agencies, the private sector and civil society, and LGUs are today at the forefront of the struggle for cleaner air.
Despite significant advances since the implementation of RA 8749, however, the challenges we face remain formidable and will test our resolve.
It is a contest – a battle – that we cannot afford to lose.
We need to strengthen partnerships toward cleaner air and coordinated action, focused today on energy and transport.
We need to forge more alliances not just between classes and among sectors but reaching across generations, because the struggle for clean air should represent in the end the confluence of diverse efforts that many Filipinos today are involved in.
Marking one hundred and thirteen years after the declaration of Philippine independence, this June we state in unison that our struggle for a better country continues.
Our demand remains the same as the demand of our ancestors – freedom.
But today we express the ideal in a new singular call to the nation:
FREEDOM FROM POLLUTION!
We thus renew our faith in our people’s ability to win this fight, empowered by the memory of one our finest sons, Jose P. Rizal, whose 150th birth anniversary we are celebrating this year.
Because the fight for clean air is ultimately an act of citizenship.
Because we honor our heroes best when we remember their deeds through acts today that uphold their memory.
Our renewed vows to struggle for clean air are a fitting tribute to the sesquincentennial of Rizal’s birthday.
In the fight for clean air, let us together shout:
Long Live Rizal! And Long Live our Children!
The PARTNERSHIP FOR CLEAN AIR (PCA)
