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Friday, March 29, 2024

Presidential bets told: Spell out ‘green’ agenda

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GREEN advocates and youth groups on Wednesday urged five presidential candidates—Liberal Party standard bearer Mar Roxas, Senators Grace Poe and Miriam Defensor Santiago, Vice President Jejomar Binay and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte—to address the issues on food security and environmental protection in their priority agenda.

“The youth are taking  up the cudgels for our farmers because they know that the future of their food depends on the agriculture of this country,” Greenpeace Philippines’ ecological agriculture campaigner Virginia Llorin said.

“Be a HampasLupa, champion food and ecological agriculture in 2016 elections,” she said.

Young leaders belonging to the National Youth Congress on Food, Nutrition and Ecological Agriculture  on Wednesday  gathered at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and launched the #IAmHampasLupa campaign to help shape the country’s programs and policies toward safe, healthy and sustainable food and agricultural system, and to heighten public awareness of the sorry state of farmers who continue to suffer from  poverty, hunger and destitution.

Llorin said the presidential aspirant must not ignore the call of the Filipino youths which comprise 40 percent of the 52 million registered voters, adding “their support is seen as crucial in the upcoming national elections.”

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According to Llorin, the #IAmHampasLupa drive aims to liberate the term hampas lupa from its historically and structurally “derogative” connotation by rediscovering and reclaiming its authentic meaning and definition, which literally means “hitting the land” or “tilling the soil,” and aptly conveys what the farmers are doing—breaking ground to cultivate and plant it with various food crops.

“It starts by changing our perception of farming and acknowledging the vital role that farmers play in our everyday lives. Farmers are looked down upon as farming is considered a poor man’s trade that no one should choose as there is no future in it,” she noted.

“We challenge our presidential bets – Poe, Binay, Roxas, Santiago and Duterte – to listen to the combined voices of the Filipino youth and be a hampas lupa,” congress participant Mark Penalver.

“If you are truly thinking of the future of our nation, we urge you to address these important issues and put food and ecological agriculture on top of your platforms. We need concrete actions to actual problems and this is one of them.”

In their national declaration, the delegates to national youth congress with the theme ‘”Securing Our Agriculture, Securing the Future of our Food,” Llorin said they came together “prodded by the need to act to defend and advance our rights and aspirations to a more secure, clean and sustainable environment, to a decent life and future, and to protect and promote ecological agriculture, which is the main anchor of the country’s food security and sovereignty.”

The national youth congress is a culminating activity for the year of the #IAmHampasLupa campaign, which gathered the support of over 1,500 youth from its Baguio, Bacolod and Davao regional youth fora in October and November.  

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