World Environment Day marked by Senator Loren Legarda with tree planting in Q.C., decries U.S. withdrawal from Paris agreement & says Phil should seek “climate justice”

Quezon City’s first bakery the 78-year-old, pugon-style Kamuning Bakery Café and Senator Loren Legarda led celebrations of United Nation’s “World Environment Day” on June 5 at the bakery’s “Pandesal Forum” starting with a ceremonial planting of Kamuning tree seedlings in Quezon City.

            In the same Pandesal Forum, Senator Loren Legarda lamented United States President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw its government from the Paris climate change agreement, she said: “The decision reeks of ignorance and condemns U.S. foreign policy to infamy. It is truly sad, but we are not hopeless. The way forward is for U.S. cities and states to enforce it.”  She cited other countries of the world such as China, France and others for their governments’ commitment to the Paris Agreement and to global joint efforts in finding ways to solve the climate crisis facing the earth.

            Senator Loren Legarda said that the Philippines is only 0.3 percent share in global greenhouse gases (GHG), yet the country is the world’s third most vulnerable to climate change impacts. She said that developing countries like the Philippines should demand “climate justice” and vigorously champion pro-active efforts to protect the environment. She also stressed that 64 of our 84 Philippine provinces, plus 822 coastal municipalities and 25 major coastal cities are at risk due to sea level rise.  

            The legislator said that the world today faces two biggest evils threats---terrorism and climate crisis. She urged all people to do our share to protect the earth. A lifelong environmental activist since her previous career as a broadcast journalist, Senator Loren Legarda is principal sponsor and author of the Philippine Climate Change Act and its amendatory law the People’s Survival Fund Act, also the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, plus many other environmental and disaster risk reduction bills.

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            Among many showbiz, arts, literary, political, media and other celebrities who have patronized Kamuning Bakery Cafe for the past 78 years included TV5 founder and the late newspaper publisher Joaquin “Chino” Roces and his father the pre-war media tycoon Don Alejandro Roces. In fact, it was the elder Roces who had invitedKamuning Bakery Cafe founder Atty. Leticia “Letty” Bonifacio Javier to open Quezon City’s first bakery in 1939. Among its many other clients included President Cory C. Aquino, food critic Dr. Doreen G. Fernandez and Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

            Flores said that among the numerous Kamuning Bakery Cafe customers included many literary, political, media and showbiz celebrities for 78 years. ForKamuning Bakery Cafe’s unique annual October 16 celebration of “World Pandesal Day” of giving away free pugon-baked pandesal breads, this project was publicly supported by President Rody Duterte, ex-actor and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada, Metro Manila Film Festival primemover and now Ilocos Norte Cong. Imelda Romualdez Marcos, Senator Sonny Angara, GMA 7 Chairman Atty. Felipe Gozon and actor Dingdong Dantes.

            The ambassadors of China, Russia, Britain, U.S.  and Singapore---Zhao Jianhua, Igor Khovaev, Asif Ahmad, Philip Goldberg, Kok Li Peng---also spoke at rare sessions of the Pandesal Forum with media and intellectuals at Kamuning Bakery Café.