Lawmakers Want Congress Declared as “Lead-Safe Zone”

22 October 2013, Quezon City. Lawmakers have signified their desire to declare both chambers of the Congress as “lead-safe zone” in resolutions filed to mark the International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action on October 20-26.

In separate resolutions, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago and Representative Anthony del Rosario expressed support for the Week of Action coordinated by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme.

As explained by Senator Santiago, a “lead-safe zone” will mean “disallowing the use of lead paint in any painting job within its premises and ensure safe work practices to minimize occupational exposures to lead.”

Proposed Senate Resolution 292 described the UN-backed Week of Action as “an excellent platform to raise public awareness about children’s exposure to lead in paint and other sources and strengthen initiatives to prevent childhood lead poisoning.”

Lead, a potent neurotoxin, is known to contribute to about 600,000 new cases per year of children with intellectual disabilities across the globe, according to the WHO.

Proposed House of Representatives Resolution 383 lauded the Week of Action “as boosting current advocacies and initiatives to bring about a shift from leaded to unleaded decorative paints, including the government’s effort to phase out lead-added paints through a Chemical Control Order for Lead and Lead Compounds, the civil society’s Lead Paint Elimination Project in partnership with the European Union, and the industry’s own efforts to move away from lead-based paint production.”

In the resolution he authored, Representative del Rosario cited “the special vulnerability of young children to lead exposure that can detrimentally affect their health and well-being, and the need for preventive actions to curb lead pollution from lead paint and other sources.”

Senator Santiago also noted that a recent report by medical experts at the New York University School of Medicine estimated childhood lead exposure is costing low and middle income countries $977 billion and the Philippines $15 billion per year due to lost lifetime economic productivity from lead-attributable IQ loss.

Senator Santiago’s and Representative del Rosario’s actions drew immediate cheers from environmentalists campaigning for zero waste and chemical safety.

“We laud the two lawmakers for taking up the cudgels on behalf of children who are most vulnerable to the toxic effects of lead,” said Aileen Lucero, National Coordinator, EcoWaste Coalition, an organization in the forefront of the campaign to stop lead pollution.

“We hope that their proposals would result in the adoption of a broader ‘lead-safe’ procurement policy that will require the use of only unleaded paints in all public buildings and facilities, especially those frequented by kids such as day care centers, schools, libraries, playgrounds, clinics and hospitals,” she added.

EcoWaste Coalition
Unit 329, Eagle Court, 26 Matalino St., 1101 Quezon City, Philippines
Phone/Fax: 4411846 E-Mail: info@ecowastecoalition.org
Website: http://ecowastecoalition.blogspot.com/

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