ECO WARRIOR

As a broadcast journalist and a lawmaker, House Deputy Speaker LOREN LEGARDA has continued to focus her platform and office on issues that plague Mother Earth

- JACS T. SAMPAYAN

Having grown up in a family compound in Malabon filled with various kinds of trees and plants, Loren Legarda says that caring for the environment has been a way of life for her.

But more than that, it has become a crusade for the Antique representative and House Deputy Speaker. Few can say that they have done as much as her for the environment in her years of public service and high-profile media work.

“In my more than 20 years as a broadcast journalist, I saw how environmental degradation and climate change affected the society's poorest and most vulnerable sectors,” Legarda says.

That’s why, she adds, she championed sustainability and environment protection by bolstering public awareness through her shows like PEP Talk and The Inside Story, the latter running up until she won a seat in the Senate in 1998.

The Deputy Speaker also produced the news magazine program Earth Link, which is the first TV documentary series on the environment. The show tackled issues that were then emerging, such as forest degradation, marine pollution, waste problem, endangerment of our endemic species of flora and fauna, among others.

IMPORTANT CONVERSATIONS

Over the years, Legarda has had many opportunities to visit different parts of the country and she’s had many conversations with people from countless communities whose concerns are rooted in the world we inhabit.