The House of Representatives adopts House Resolution No. 1377 declaring a climate and
environmental emergency, a report from the office of first district representative Edgar
Chatto says.
Bohol first district Cong. Edgar Chatto, House Committee on Climate Change chair, and
Deputy Speaker Loren Legarda are the principal authors of the resolution that was adopted
in the Lower House on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020, a report says.
The resolution calls for the mobilization of government agencies, instrumentalities, local
government units, towards effective implementation of environmental, climate change
adaptation, and disaster risk reduction and management.
The resolution is the first climate emergency declaration that is national in scope.
It enumerates climate emergency mandates including placing climate change efforts at the
center of all policy decision-making from local to national level; climate change declarations
in respective jurisdictions; collaboration of agencies with technical experts to come up with
a Climate Risk Assessment and for industry stakeholders to reinvest in renewable and
sustainable energy.
Furthermore, the resolution calls on major carbon emitters local and abroad to take
responsibility for climate change and to reinvest in renewable and sustainable energy; for
local industries and local government units to pursue the same as well as to adopt No to
Coal or No to New Coal policies in respective jurisdictions.
The resolution also urges use of oversight power to mainstream policies on climate change
at different levels of government with the conduct of audit of relevant agencies in
compliance to existing environmental, climate, disaster risk reduction and management,
and international agreements on climate and environmental emergency.
Moreover, the Chatto-Legarda resolution enjoins national government agencies towards
science-based policy formulation and risk governance.
In a privilege speech on Monday, Nov. 23, 2020, Chatto called on Congress to take the
lead in declaring a national climate emergency in the country.
He strongly urged concrete actions at every level of governance to address impacts of
climate change and tackled about the urgency to address climate change amid hazards the
country continues to face.
Urgent action is required to reduce or halt climate change effects and avoid potentially
irreversible environmental damage, he stated.
Chatto, in a television interview, also explained that climate change action must take a
multi-sectoral and multi-directional approach. It cannot be left to a single agency; there
must be direct involvement and commitment at local level.
The effects of climate change are unimaginably devastating and human activities continue
to change the dynamics of nature so that a strong call to take immediate and serious action
is important, he stressed.
The late Cong. Raul Del Mar, Representatives Yasser Allonto Balindong, Elisa “Olga” Kho,
Jocelyn Sy Limkaichong, Eufemia Cullamat, and Romeo Momo, Sr. are co-authors of the
House Resolution.