Law and Order

As a legislator, she has authored and co-authored numerous bills that have been enacted into significant laws, to mention a few:

RA 9160 – Anti Money Laundering Law
RA 9163 – National Service Training Program
RA 9165 – Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act
RA 9184 – Government Procurement Reform Act
RA 9208 – Anti Trafficking in Persons Act
RA 9262 – Anti Domestic Violence Act

Apart from enacting laws, she provided financial assistance to the municipality of Nasugbu in Batangas for the construction of rehabilitation center for drug dependents. Moreover, she is an honorary member of the Citizens Drug Watch Foundation.

She contributed significantly in the peace process both with the NDF and the MILF through her participation in the release process of military and police officers as well as a fellow journalist who were held captive by rebel factions.

Overseas Filipinos

Apart from those encapsulated in the acronym L.O.R.E.N., Loren has likewise championed the protection of the rights and welfare of our overseas Filipinos. Believing that they are indeed the modern-day heroes, Loren has pushed for programs and important pieces of legislation that would pay tribute and recognize the significant role that overseas Filipinos have played in national development.

During the Eleventh Congress, Loren filed Proposed Senate Resolution, Declaring the Year 2000 as year of the Overseas Filipino Workers, which subsequently became the basis of a presidential proclamation.

Loren also had the privilege to visit some of the Filipino communities in various countries:

Filipino community in New Zealand (June 1999)
Filipino community in Guam (June 1999)
Filipino community in Pohnpei (June 1999)
Filipino community in Australia (Sydney Olympics)
Filipino community in the Netherlands (March 1999, January 2000)

During the Twelfth Congress, Loren co-authored and co-sponsored the Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2002 (RA 9189), the Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Bill (RA 9225) and the law providing for additional benefits and privileges to Balikbayan (RA 9174). During her official mission and visits broad, Loren visited the Filipino communities in the following countries and states:

Filipino community in Japan (October 2001)
Filipino community in Canada (November 2002)
Filipino community in Hong Kong (December 2002)
Filipino community in New Jersey (May 2003)
Filipino community in New York (June 2003)
Filipino community in Chicago (June 2003)
Filipino community in Passaic, New Jersey (June 2003)
Filipino community in New York (October 2003)
Filipino community in Los Angeles (October 2003)

Rights of Women, Youth and Children

With her commitment to serve the most vulnerable members of the society, Loren places special interest in protecting the rights and promoting the welfare of women, youth, and children, including those who were victims of sexual coercion during the Second World War, commonly known as “comfort women”. Her dedication to this cause enabled her to develop leadership with a heart – leadership with passion and determination, with subtlety and firmness, drawing her concerns from her being a woman and a mother. Loren hence initiated various programs for the benefit of women and children such as the Livelihood Opportunities to Raise Entrepreneurship Nationwide or LOREN for Women which provides capital for women entrepreneurs, and LOREN for MilDeps which provides livelihood training programs for wives, children and dependents of Filipino soldiers. She also established the Libro ni Loren Foundation which grants scholarship for indigent children.

One of the prominent women legislators who supports the crusade of women and children for their rights, Loren filed various measures such as Domestic Violence Act (RA 9262), Anti-Abuse of Women in Intimate Relationships (Anti-AWIR) Act, the Magna Carta for the Working Children (RA 9231) and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act which was passed into law as RA 9208.

Loren considers the right to health a primordial concern and, thus, initiated her Tulong Pangkalusugan Program to help improve the health conditions of her constituencies, especially those in the rural areas. Under said program, she has conducted medical and dental missions in selected areas nationwide. Furthermore, she has allocated portions of her Priority Development Assistance Fund through Philhealth to cover indigent families in NCR, Region V and VI.

Education

Inasmuch as Loren believes that literacy is a fundamental human right, she also acknowledges the urgent need for a collaborative effort between the government and non-government entities involved in literacy promotion. This endeavor would help underscore the fact that literacy is a necessary skill, a foundation of other skills, a catalyst for participation in social, cultural, political, and economic activities and for continuing education through life.

While accessibility and literacy are basic problems inherent to every society, the Philippines is also burdened with the lack of good quality education. Despite the existence of various laws and programs that aim to improve this, much still needs to be done to see their effects at the grassroots level. Apart from the following bills that she has introduced in order to address education-related problems, she has contributed in the improvement of literacy levels especially in the far-flung areas through her book donation program under the Libro ni Loren Foundation and has provided scholarships to former child laborers in Paracale, Camarines Norte, Aeta students in Zambales, poor students in Batulao, Batangas, Dumagat, Ilongot and Igorot students in Aurora, students in Mindanao. She has likewise allocated portions of her Priority Development Assistance Fund for the construction of school-buildings in various municipalities and provinces nationwide, as well as to the “Gift of Knowledge”, educational program of Knowledge Channel to students of Irineo L. Santiago National High School in General Santos City.

RA 8980 – Early Childhood Care and Development
RA 9141 – Negros State College of Agriculture
RA 9151 – National Apiculture Research, Training and Development Institute
RA 9158 – Leyte State University
RA 9190 – Cebu International School

Environment

A lover of the environment by nature, Loren started her campaign for its protection and preservation as early as her years as a broadcast journalist. Upon her incumbency as a Senator, she has actively espoused for the passage of important environmental measures such as the Philippine Clean Air Act and Ecological Solid Waste Management Act. Apart from this, she also espoused the clean up of toxic waste left behind by former US bases in Subic and Clark, and has helped provide medical assistance to children victims of toxic waste contamination.

Realizing the tedious process of lawmaking, Loren went beyond the halls of the Senate and established a tree-growing program, Luntiang Pilipinas, which seeks to raise the level of awareness of the Filipinos to the value of trees.

Her efforts as an ecological warrior gained the respect and admiration not only of the nation but also of the global community, thus bringing her various awards and citations, the most prestigious of which is her elevation to the Global 500 Roll of Honour of the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). In 2004, she was also recognized by the Priyardashni Academy in India for her environmental crusade.

Her co-authored laws on environmental protection are as follows:

RA 9878 – Mt. Kitanglad Range Protected Area
RA 8991 – Batanes Group of Islands Protected Area
RA 9147 – Conservation and Protection of Wildlife Resources

Employment

Loren recognizes a constitutional mandate that labor is a primary social economic force and that the rights of workers must be protected and their welfare be promoted. One of the first laws she co-authored was the establishment of the Public Employment Service Office (RA 8759) in all capital towns, key cities and other strategic areas nationwide. To promote and hasten economic development in the countryside, she co-authored the Barangay Micro Business Enterprises (BMBEs) to encourage the formation and growth of micro business enterprises and the granting of incentives and benefits to generate much-needed employment to alleviate poverty.

Outside of legislative work, Loren has taken an active role in improving the lives of the people through gainful employment, especially of women. On June 9, 1999, she launched a livelihood program called L.O.R.E.N. or Livelihood Opportunities to Raise Employment Nationwide. This program provides skills and entrepreneurial training, job placement and small-scale financial assistance to unemployed and disadvantaged citizens and has initially benefited 400 out-of-school youths.

Nationalism

Nationalism, our love for our country and our people, necessarily translates to love for what we have and who we have become as a nation. Our sense of nationhood binds us as a country and as a people. It is important that this sense of nationhood be nurtured by the unity of intention and oneness of motive of our people to see our country be great again. That is why Loren believes that all efforts towards national reconciliation and healing must be pursued, particularly through legislation that seeks to recognize the richness of culture, the uniqueness of our diversity as a people, and the role played by Filipinos who have labored to preserve our culture through our history of forebears. In line with this, she co-authored the declaration of Eid’l Fitr as a national holiday (RA 9177).

The traditions and customs of our proud Filipino heritage have thrived despite invading conquerors, wars, historical events and changing governments. Apart from authoring measures that help promote nationalism, she likewise co-sponsored the declaration of June 30 of every year as the Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day (RA 9187).

Ultimately, however, Loren believes that the love for country should be synonymous to the love for environment. As such, she best expresses her love for country through her passion for the environment.