Isang makaluntiang umaga sa inyong lahat!

I stand before you humbled and honored for the opportunity to lead this Department, and at the same time happy to be with you all for the first flag ceremony after more than two years of the pandemic.

Today’s ceremony is doubly joyous as we also celebrate the 2022 Women’s Month this March. Let us recognize the environmental women warriors who are with us today.

This year’s Women’s Month theme, “Women make change amidst climate crisis and COVID-19,” is significant and relevant as it clearly encapsulates women’s innate ability to adapt to climate change.

According to the Project Drawdown, a global knowledge and information hub on climate solutions, education reinforces the ability of girls and women and helps elevate their resilience from the effects of disasters and calamities.

Our Department plays a very significant role in further educating and elevating the ability of young girls and women by involving them in our program and projects geared to protect and nurture not only our environment and natural resources but also the well-being of their respective communities from climate crisis.
This is the reason why in our commemoration this month, we want to highlight and increase the participation of women. We will expand and upscale transformative actions of women, their groups, and communities.

As today, we will give recognition to women’s climate disaster resiliency and COVID response.

The Philippines continues to participate in the Global Good Stories Movement. In this movement, we share the common belief that we can change the story of the world by changing the storyline. By doing so, we encourage more and more Filipinos to create good stories on positive behavior.

Thus, I encourage the central office, bureaus, attached agencies, regional, provincial, and community offices to spot and harvest good stories. Let us document, publicize and share them. We do this with the objective of creating more ripples of hope, encourage people to do good, and create more good stories.

This is because we hope to have more transformative actions happening on the ground to help alleviate the vulnerabilities of women and their families amid the climate crisis and the health pandemic.

Muli, sa ating mga kababaihan, maganda saka hindi, opisyal at kawani, Happy Women’s Month! Mabuhay po ang kababaihan!