Philippines supports UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

THE Philippines expressed its legislative branch’ commitment to the post-2015 development agenda, consisting of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), that world leaders will adopt at the eve of the United Nations’ 70th founding anniversary this month.

In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said that Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations Lourdes Yparraguirre reported that Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Giorgidi Aggabao reiterated the Philippine government’s commitment to eradicate poverty in the country and ensure inclusive growth.

“Our constituents elected us and placed their trust on us to help transform their communities for the better. Our mandate to make laws allows us to do just that and to ensure that our economic growth is inclusive and sustainable. To do this, we continued to transform the Congress itself into an exemplar of performance and accountability,” Aggabao sad.

He joined over 170 speakers and deputy speakers from nearly 140 countries at the Fourth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament organized at UN headquarters in New York by the Inter-Parliamentary Union or IPU, the global organization of parliaments that works to establish democracy, peace and cooperation among peoples.

The three-day conference, held once every five years, adopted a declaration with the world’s parliamentarians pledging to support the post-2015 development agenda, which consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets that cover the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

It will succeed the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will culminate this year.
Aggabao underscored the post-2015 development agenda’s recognition of lawmakers’ essential role as co-owners of the agenda.

“Nowhere is this role more pronounced than through our most important constitutional duty … the national budget law,” he said.

The lawmaker said that Congress allotted increasingly greater sums for education, healthcare, housing, social welfare, employment, infrastructure and poverty alleviation through the years, accounting for 40 percent of the national budget.

Some of the SDGs closest to the Philippines are the issues of migrants’ rights and welfare, human rights, gender equality and the empowerment of women, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and recognition of the special challenges facing middle-income countries.

IPU noted, for example, that while some progress has been made on commitments to increasing women’s participation in parliament since the 2010 Speakers’ Conference, the pace of change remains “unacceptably slow overall.”

Some countries have announced planned changes to electoral laws that will ensure more equitable representation of women, youth and minorities. (CVB/Sunnex)