The Philippine Embassy in Berlin hosted a lecture-discussion entitled “The Philippines at the Heart of Planetary Health” by Dr Ramon Lorenzo Luis ‘Renzo’ Rosa Guinto, Chief Planetary Doctor at ‘think-and-do tank’ PH Lab and a Harvard doctoral graduate, for the fourth session of its AklaTamBayan living library series, held on 25 October 2019.
Dr Guinto opened his talk by citing the public health legacies of Dr Rudolf Virchow and Dr Jose Rizal.
Dr Guinto, who is a visiting fellow at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium until December 2019, is in Berlin to attend the World Health Summit taking place from 27 to 29 October 2019.
In his talk at the Embassy, he noted the importance of a planetary health framework to serve as a fresh ethical paradigm and renewed basis for collective action that integrates the health of people and the health of the planet. He mentioned the unique challenges faced by the Philippines in the area of Climate Change, as shown by the devastation wreaked by super typhoons like Haiyan.
To show what is being done to address the challenge, he screened two short films he produced as part of his doctoral dissertation, documenting the experiences of communities in Del Carmen, Surigao del Norte and Ajuy, Iloilo.
Ambassador Dizon-De Vega and Dr Guinto with some of the attendees of the talk.
The talk drew an audience of around 25 people, including Embassy personnel as well as public health practitioners from the German Health Alliance and Médecins sans frontieres, and members of the Filipino community.
Alongside the talk, wherein Dr Renzo identified current food production systems as a major contributor to Climate Change and health issues such as obesity and antibiotic resistance, the Embassy provided a vegetarian grazing table with plant-based interpretations of Filipino favorites like adobo.
The Filipino vegan grazing tables prepared by the Embassy for the guests.
“Along with Migration and Food Security, Climate Change is one of the great defining issues today,” Ambassador Ma. Theresa B. Dizon-De Vega said in her remarks before the talk, “and it is a privilege for us to host events like this to contribute to the conversation about it in our own small way.” (END)
