SINCE the year started, President Arroyo has been spending part of her Fridays in local governments around the country to preside over briefings on climate change and solid-waste management, provide support for environmentally sound projects, and to warn local officials of the perils of delayed action against global warming.

As the country’s climate-change czar under Executive Order 774, which reorganized the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change toward the end of 2008, Mrs. Arroyo has required herself to devote a few hours of Friday—her “Climate-Change Day”—to environmental concerns and initiatives to help instill a new mindset of  “conservation, protection and restoration (CPR)” across the country.

It came as no surprise, then, that on Friday, October 23, she signed into law Republic Act 9729, or the Climate-Change Act of 2009, which institutionalizes a Climate Change Commission that will oversee the implementation of government policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

The President will head the commission that will formulate a Framework Strategy and Program on Climate Change within six months, to mainstream climate-change and disaster-risk reduction into development plans and programs at all levels.

A year after the submission of the framework strategy and program, the commission will draw up a National Climate Change Action Plan. Local government units will also formulate their respective Local Climate Change Action Plan.

Under RA 9729, “The State shall strengthen, integrate, consolidate and institutionalize government initiatives” to coordinate the implementation of plans and programs to address climate change in the context of sustainable development.

The commission will have an advisory board composed of secretaries of differentgovernment agencies and the presidents of the League of Cities, municipalities and barangays;  and the representatives of academe, business sector, nongovernment and civil-society organizations.

The signing was scheduled on October 30 but was apparently advanced by a week to stress the urgency of putting in place a full-fledged commission that will coordinate top-to-bottom measures to fight global warming, especially after typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng showed a glimpse of the catastrophic impact of climate change.

Sen. Miguel Zubiri, one of the coauthors of RA 9729, said the law is a “culmination of a long fight against climate change and global warming.” It would institutionalize and give teeth to existing mechanisms against climate change, referring to the appointment of Presidential Adviser on Climate Change Heherson Alvarez  and the issuance of Executive Order 774 last year.

EO 774 created 14 task groups, including the Task Group on CPR Economics, headed by the National Economic and Development Authority and the Department of Trade and Industry, which is to prepare a 10-, 20- 30-year CPR Economic Action Plan in line with the “Principle of Seven Generations”—a reference to the lasting impact of decisions on the use of natural resources on the grandchildren of grandchildren.

Under the EO, the Board of Investments and the Department of Finance were directed to implement a “simplified and beneficial Investment Priorities Plan to shift the thrust of the economy from a consumerist economy of wasteful practices to an economy that is based on the sustainable use and conservation of physical sources and resources of life.”

Such measures are part of the administration’s “Green Philippines Environmental Plan,” which the President often mentions in engagements related to environmental concerns.

At the United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s International Conference on Green Industry in Asia last month, the President said: “Our Green Philippines Agenda puts an emphasis on a sustainable economic model that brings economic opportunity and a concern for our environment, indeed, a model of green industry. It is devoted to a sustainable economic model that allows for growth, job creation and environmental stewardship.”

She said the Philippines, as a developing economy, has a “unique opportunity” to “introduce new industries that are clean and profitable.”

One of Mrs. Arroyo’s first acts when she assumed office in 2001 was to sign into law Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000. It spawned the Green Choice Philippines scheme, the national eco-labeling program that seeks to shift consumption and production patterns by helping consumers make green choices.

Before the end of her first term, she signed Executive Order 301, which establishes a Green Procurement Program for departments, bureaus, offices and agencies under the Executive.

In 2007 the President enacted the Biofuels Act and a year later, the Renewable Energy Act, which promotes the development, use and commercialization of renewable-energy resources by providing fiscal and nonfiscal incentives to potential investors.

Last year Philippine officials collaborated with scientists and senior government officials from five other countries in finalizing the Regional Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security Plan of Action to reverse the degradation of the Coral Triangle, the global epicenter of marine-species diversity.

The government is promoting the use of compressed natural gas among buses plying the region immediately south of Metro Manila by encouraging investors to build a chain of compressed natural gas (CNG) stations and a natural-gas pipeline along the route. It has also extended financial assistance to public transport operators who wish to convert their fleet to run on CNG or liquefied petroleum gas.

As storm Ondoy flooded Metro Manila and Central Luzon, the President launched the first National Residential Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL) Distribution in Tondo, Manila, under the  “Switch to CFL” Program of the Philippine Energy Efficiency Project of the Department of Energy, assisted by the Asian Development Bank. It is the first nationwide program in Asia that targets the replacement of 13 million incandescent bulbs with CFLs to make the Philippines incandescent bulb-free by 2010. This would reduce the country’s oil imports by $120 million a year, as well as its carbon-dioxide emission.

Asked to assess the Arroyo administration’s policies to promote green business, Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, who is also Presidential economic adviser, said the Philippines has become a “leader in this aspect” and cited the passage of the Biofuels Act and the Renewable Energy Act, among others.

“Our body of environmental laws is probably among the most comprehensive in the world. The only problem is with implementation. The best contribution of the Philippines to climate change is the implementation of its best body of environmental laws,” Salceda said.