Background of the advocacy

The ongoing problem of pollution is very alarming. Our country Philippines was ranked 82nd out of 180 countries in the latest release of Environmental Performance Index. The Philippines has also ranked 3rd in the highest air pollution deaths according to the World Health Organization in May 2018. There were about 45.3 deaths per 100,000 Filipinos due to air pollution as told by Dr. Roger Dazo, outgoing CAMANAVA Governor of the Philippine Medical Association. 

The average concentration of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 concentration) in the Southeast Asian region is 21μg/m3 annually which is over twice the recommended value of the World Health Organization. These fine particles tend to stay longer in the air. These fine particles may trigger or worsen chronic diseases such as bronchitis, asthma, and any other respiratory illness. The Philippines annual PM 2.5 concentration is at 18.4 μg/m3 according to 2016 WHO report which exceeds the safe levels. 

The dilemma in pollution has worsened and it already affected the marine environment. Recently, there was a lot of news about the deaths of marine creatures like whales who have swallowed huge amounts of plastics and marine turtles who got strangled in plastics. 

Pollution has been an unending dilemma to us and if we don't act now, soon the lovely planet we have always known will vanish. This is the reason behind the project we are advocating. As senior high school students, we want to advocate for the real change and to become ambassadors of this campaign.