Press Release
March 29, 2009

Press statement of Senator Loren Legarda

ON HOSTAGE SITUATION

I welcome the temporary withdrawal of our troops from an area in Indanan, Sulu, to allow the safe release of the three International Red Cross hostages of the Abu Sayaff. While kidnapping for any reason is unacceptable, the safety and freedom of the innocent hostages should be given priority.

It is however regrettable that our government has to take a call from International Committee of the Red Cross Jakob Kellenberger to take this obviously rational and humanitarian course. The kidnappers had been asking for negotiations and our government should have taken it for the sake of the lives of innocent people.

The delay and the instant resort to force, which endangered the lives of the hostages, only gave our country another large demerit in the eyes of the world in respect to the preservation of innocent lives in similar situations.

ON EARTH HOUR

The finding of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that the Philippines had the most number of cities and towns that participated in the Earth Hour exercise Saturday night is a bright feather in our cap as a responsible member of the world community.

This shows that Filipinos inherently have a love of nature, second to none. It also shows that Filipinos still nurture the bayanihan spirit that their fathers possessed, which is the collective spirit of responsibility and caring for the community, nation and the world.

It is this bayanihan spirit that we can tap in order to unite our country in solving our persistent problems of poverty, criminality, disrespect for the rule of law and lack of progress. But to properly tap this well of national solidarity, we need strong and sincere leadership.

The global economic crisis

With the global economic crisis worsening this year, and bound to impact the Philippines even more deeply, it is urgent that our government should prioritize food sufficiency in its programs. No less than the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has warned of "food and fuel price volatility" as the crisis deepens.

As chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, I urge the government, especially the Department of Agriculture, to accelerate its programs for providing technical, financial and infrastructural support to our farmers to increase their productivity. The stimulus package should target more irrigation, farm-to-market roads and inter-island transport systems, technical assistance and subsidies to our producers of rice, corn, fish, meat, poultry and other staples.

We should convert the crisis into an opportunity to make our country more self-sufficient in food to combat chronic hunger.

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