Welcome Address

by

Rep. Teresa Aquino-Oreta

PLCPD Chairperson for the House of Representatives

Honorable Parliamentarians and Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends;

On behalf of the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development, I welcome you to our country and to the Twelfth Asian Parliamentarians' Meeting on Population and Development.

In particular, please allow me the honor to welcome Mr. Fukusaburo Maeda, Chairman of the Asian Population and Development Association; the Honorable Shin Sakurai, Chairman of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development; DR. Hirofumi Ando, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund; and the Honorable Neptali Gonzales, President of the Senate of the Republic of the Philip-pines, all distinguished Asian leaders on population management advocacy.

The presence of His Excellency, President Fidel V. Ramos, as your Keynote Speaker invests this meeting with a special significance, considering that the concept of population and development continue to be particularly controversial in this country today. We are deeply indebted to the President for his demonstration of his unswerving support for our efforts at crafting a viable consensual population policy that embraces the concerns of women and child welfare and food security.

Indeed, one of the most compelling factors for a population policy is the concern for food. And nowhere is this more pronounced than in this country where not only must we make sure that 60 million or so Filipinos are assured of food everyday, but we must also ensure that we have enough on the side to nourish one and half million Filipinos born every year. It is noteworthy that, in this country, under the leadership of President Ramos, food security instead of being a seasonal agendum in cabinet conferences, is today a continuing topic of the highest councils of the land.

One thing I am also particularly proud to say to all, is that our President has the distinction of consistently putting the developmental role of women on top of his agenda for growth. In this light, the President will be interested to know that, in this century of giant strides for the cause of women empowerment, many of the women notables and leaders who made those giant steps possible, are here among us today. Veterans of the l 975 Mexico Declaration on the Equality of Women, the 1 980 Copenhagen Programme of Action for Women, the 1 985 Nairobi World Conference of the UN Decade for Women, and last year's historic Beijing Conference.