Statement of Resource Person, Naderev Madla Saño
30 November 2018, Bonifacio Day
Preliminaries:
My name is Naderev Madla Saño. I am widely known in the international
community and the environmental movement as Yeb Saño. I am one of the
individual petitioners in this current Inquiry.
I am honored to provide my insights as a resource person for the National
Inquiry on Climate Change being conducted by the Honourable Commission on
Human Rights (CHR) of the Philippines.
A copy of my curriculum vitae is annexed to this statement. My area of
expertise is on climate policy, both internationally and domestically. I have been
invited by the petitioners to serve as a resource person to:
• offer insights about climate policy, in particular the gaps in international and
domestic policies
• share my experiences from bearing witness in communities and places
adversely affected by climate change through my global climate pilgrimages
• share my reflections regarding the momentum building up in various sectors
on climate accountability and climate justice issues; and
• expound on the reasons and motivation for this instant petition and relate the
journey of petitioners from the time of the lodging of this petition with the
CHR
It is important to note, for the CHR, that I am not a climate scientist, nor do I
profess to be a scientific expert. My area of expertise, as described above is on
climate policy, having been involved in this field for over two decades. Any
reference I make in relation to the science of climate change is based on my in-depth
study and review of scientific literature and scientific reports that have been
published.
For more than two decades, I have been working on the issue of climate change,
starting from leading a project that investigated the impacts of climate change on
fisheries and coral reefs in the Philippines and the development of a computer
modeling platform that makes projections on the impacts of climate change on
fisheries. As the Director of the Climate Change and Energy Program of World Wide
Fund for Nature (WWF) – Philippines from 2000-2004 and 2008-2010, I was part
of the team that helped put together the Philippines’ Renewable Energy Act of 2008
(R.A. No. 9513), in particular the provisions on renewable portfolio standards, netmetering, green energy option, the feed-in-tariff mechanism, and the fiscal and nonfiscal incentives for the development of renewable energy.
From 2010-2015, I served as a Commissioner in the Climate Change
Commission of the Philippines. The Climate Change Commission is the Philippines’
lead policy-making body on climate change.