We are young citizens conscious of our primordial rights to life, good health and a healthy environment.
We are aware that these rights require us to perform the corresponding obligation to protect the environment and maintain an ecologically sustainable lifestyle for the benefit of all, young and old, humans and non-humans, including those yet to be born.
We are committed to assist in the eco-literacy campaign to help stem the tide of ecological devastation rapidly taking place in Cebu, the Philippines and the world.
We are very much concerned with the growing global crisis called climate change, it being due to anthropogenic factors such as our continued dependency on fossil fuels and the rapid rate of deforestation and biodiversity destruction taking place all over the world, including Cebu which is “one of the most degraded areas in the country and a conservation priority.”
We are aware of the destructive effects of climate change that have and will destroy our dwindling resources and habitats, and victimize millions of our brothers and sisters in this archipelago, especially those without the knowledge, capacity and resources to adapt to and mitigate the adverse impact.
We are alarmed that this grave “planetary emergency” faced by humankind is met with silence by the stakeholders, especially the public sector. The time for talking is NOW, and not when disaster again revisits the islands.
We are calling on the national and local government leaders to prioritize the issues of climate change, environmental protection and sustainable, not purely economic, development. Both share the responsibility of ensuring the constituents’ rights to life and a healthy ecosystem, to obey the Constitution, enforce the environmental laws and dispense with the culture of patronage that has enveloped and weakened our political institutions and the ensuing negative consequences that have so degraded our environment.
We are resolved to choose only the leaders who have the political will to steer this country and Cebu to an ecologically sustainable tomorrow, and who will ACT NOW, before it is too late.
Signed this 22nd day of April, 2008, Cebu City, Philippines.
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