PRESIDENT Aquino on Tuesday urged stakeholders to pay back Laguna Lake by protecting it and nursing it back to health, as the country’s largest lake has continued to deteriorate due to pollution, illegal fishing and overpopulation along its banks.
Mr. Aquino made the appeal in barangay Punta in Jala-Jala, Rizal, after he released 200,000 big-head carp and tilapia fingerlings in the lake.
“If in the past we would catch big bangus and tilapia, now you’ll be lucky if you bring home a few small fish. The cry of Laguna Lake is clear: We have benefited from her for a long time so it is our obligation to repay her with our care...so that she will continue to shower us with her bounty and livelihood,” he said.
Mr. Aquino said his act of seeding the lake with fingerlings is his way of giving back to the lake.
“We should not only partake of the bounties of Laguna Lake. We are recognizing our obligation as citizens to cultivate and restore, as best as we can, the bounties of the lake. No one else would do this but us. And this is also for us,” he said.
The President said since January, almost 6 million tilapia fingerlings had been released to the lake, which were shared with over 1,400 fish-cage operators affected by Typhoon Ondoy.
Mr. Aquino urged local officials to actively cooperate in the implementation of the Bantay Lawa program to protect the lake from further abuse and to participate in the Institutional, Strategic and Development Agreement for Laguna Lake Water, or ISDA sa LAWA.
The President said environmental protection is among his priorities and cited the issuance of Executive Order (EO) 26, or the National Greening Program, which seeks to plant 1.5 billion seedlings in half a million hectares of land all over the country; and EO 23, which ordered a ban on logging in natural and residual forests.
“I will not think twice in signing more executive orders to ensure that we are looking after Mother Nature and we are pursuing the interest and welfare of the people...Our envisioned Philippines is a country where those who work hard would never go hungry,” he said.
