Column: ROTARY GREEN
By Chaie Reforma
Title: Pilipinas Verde on the Move
There can never be enough environment preservation efforts to sustain our ecosystem for generations to come. The Rotary Club of Makati San Antonio knows this only too well. That is why it has become such a believer in greening efforts that it has launched its very own environment program called Pilipinas Verde. Pilipinas Verde is a program for the enrichment, rehabilitation and development of the environment. Still in its very early stage of conception, it already has three major thrusts which are being pursued through critical programs that address the growing need for greater awareness and affirmative action in the fight against environmental degradation.
The first project under the Pilipinas Verde banner is the Puno Pilipinas tree planting program. Aligned with the United Nations Environment Development Program, it aims to contribute to the Billion Trees campaign. A thousand trees are earmarked for 2010 and the aim is to grow this number twofold in the next three (3) years. Five locations have been identified for reforestation and these are: the La Mesa Watershed Nature Preserve, Timberland Heights in Montalban Rizal, the Trece Martires community, the Family Haven Farm in Tanauan, Batangas and the Buso-buso farm in Antipolo. This program has been enjoying popular support among the the club members and their families who always participate in the tree planting activities.
The second program is the Natural Farming Seminar series. It aims to raise awareness and appreciation for using natural methods in farming or even just planting simple vegetation in one’s own backyard. We become instruments in spreading the word about Natural Farming by conducting educational seminars that promote the concept of working with natural energies rather than trying to subdue nature. In brief, what natural farming does is to make use of beneficial microorganisms in bringing the soil and the environment back to its original form without the need for insecticide or fungicide. While this approach may yield more benefits for small farms rather than big agricultural businesses, it is -- we believe -- the best approach so far to a truly sustainable living.
Third, we have the One Bag Down program that aims to help in reducing waste especially in tourist sites where there is a tendency for garbage to pile up due to high traffic. Cleaning up the world may seem like a daunting task, especially if we consider how much mess everyone has made through many, many years. Big, elaborate rebuilding plans are needed -- and everything needs to be put into action. We must not forget, however, the very basic task: if the world has become littered with garbage, then the most logical starting point is to pick them up and do some real cleaning. It may sound like a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.
These programs are the basic starting points of our effort to carry out a legacy that instills a deep respect for the environment as the only source of sustenance in this world. Our natural human instinct is to protect rather than to destroy and every one of us has the responsibility to harness the environment for its many benefits without destroying it so that future generations may also reap its blessings.
Ms. Reforma is President of the Rotary Club of Makati San Antonio
Monday, November 1, 2010
violeta12
Column name: Travel Blogger
Name of article: Forest Rainbow Under
By Violeta Imperial
I woke up early for morning prayers and rituals and I discovered that there is NO WATER in the shower. I will definitely check out earlier even though I had planned to stay for two nights.
I continued my beautiful morning. I enjoyed the very lovely sunrise at the lake that was so serene and peaceful. I joined the boat resort for the fish feeding and enjoyed every moment of my photo opportunities. After the ride, sumptuous breakfast is waiting for us, the crackling chicharong tilapia, the brewed coffee, fried rice and vegetable omelet. I enjoyed our meal, while looking at the lake, looking at the fishpond, and watching the tourists doing their early lake tour.
The habal habal arrived early (it’s a local motorbike that could carry a maximum of ten passengers). Our first stop, the first waterfalls, was so magnificent. Next stop is the Slide for Life or Zipline as they call it here. It is said to be the highest in the Philippines. Honestly, I felt like a scared chicken as if all the memories of my happy life flashed back and I still want to live. My heart beat as fast as we went down. I closed my eyes and missed the sight of the first enchanting forest around the second waterfalls. But because I wanted to take photos, I opened my eyes, and I saw this magical rainbow below me, for first time. And it is a FULL Rainbow BELOW me. I hurriedly turned on my camera and discovered that it is already low in batteries and my companion’s camera was still inside her bag. For all those who are reading this, it’s a lesson learned for me.
There is a T’boli souvenir shop here where you can get authentic tribal clothes for a donation. How I wish sometimes, that they would make sizes for big people also, they keep forgetting we also have money to donate. In the photo, it looks like it fits me well, but my hand behind is holding the ends together.
Next is the road trip around the lake, showing us the best rice fields and the closed resort owned by a local politician? I saw some opportunities to invest in these happy T’boli villages. We stopped by one fruit store to buy bananas. Our driver saw a friend whose wife just gave birth and he was asking for money for the baby’s milk. Our hearts sank with massive compassion and asked how much the milk was. 200 pesos for the new born he said, so we gave 100 pesos each. Then we boarded back to our motorbike and before we left, I asked, how many kids to you have, he said ten kids. I felt ripped off, but I guess it is still good to help.
Next is the T’boli house and the T’boli museum, so much I want to learn from them but had very limited time. I observed that the women mostly are the ones into this kind of supplementary livelihood; it reminded me of the ladies who belonged to Women in Nation Development for Sarangani (WINDS).
On our way to back to General Santos, I was seated beside a T’boli lady who was wearing authentic native clothes. I loved her skirt that I drooled with envy, I wanted to buy it. She is so proud of her tribe and I loved that even more. How I wish that the other Indigenous People are as proud of their culture and tradition, like the lady. Only wise and mature societies could understand the importance of Indigenous People. Those who discriminate against them are so foolish, I think.
Ms. Imperial is a community based ecology tour provider, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) organizer, nature lover and scuba diver
Name of article: Forest Rainbow Under
By Violeta Imperial
I woke up early for morning prayers and rituals and I discovered that there is NO WATER in the shower. I will definitely check out earlier even though I had planned to stay for two nights.
I continued my beautiful morning. I enjoyed the very lovely sunrise at the lake that was so serene and peaceful. I joined the boat resort for the fish feeding and enjoyed every moment of my photo opportunities. After the ride, sumptuous breakfast is waiting for us, the crackling chicharong tilapia, the brewed coffee, fried rice and vegetable omelet. I enjoyed our meal, while looking at the lake, looking at the fishpond, and watching the tourists doing their early lake tour.
The habal habal arrived early (it’s a local motorbike that could carry a maximum of ten passengers). Our first stop, the first waterfalls, was so magnificent. Next stop is the Slide for Life or Zipline as they call it here. It is said to be the highest in the Philippines. Honestly, I felt like a scared chicken as if all the memories of my happy life flashed back and I still want to live. My heart beat as fast as we went down. I closed my eyes and missed the sight of the first enchanting forest around the second waterfalls. But because I wanted to take photos, I opened my eyes, and I saw this magical rainbow below me, for first time. And it is a FULL Rainbow BELOW me. I hurriedly turned on my camera and discovered that it is already low in batteries and my companion’s camera was still inside her bag. For all those who are reading this, it’s a lesson learned for me.
There is a T’boli souvenir shop here where you can get authentic tribal clothes for a donation. How I wish sometimes, that they would make sizes for big people also, they keep forgetting we also have money to donate. In the photo, it looks like it fits me well, but my hand behind is holding the ends together.
Next is the road trip around the lake, showing us the best rice fields and the closed resort owned by a local politician? I saw some opportunities to invest in these happy T’boli villages. We stopped by one fruit store to buy bananas. Our driver saw a friend whose wife just gave birth and he was asking for money for the baby’s milk. Our hearts sank with massive compassion and asked how much the milk was. 200 pesos for the new born he said, so we gave 100 pesos each. Then we boarded back to our motorbike and before we left, I asked, how many kids to you have, he said ten kids. I felt ripped off, but I guess it is still good to help.
Next is the T’boli house and the T’boli museum, so much I want to learn from them but had very limited time. I observed that the women mostly are the ones into this kind of supplementary livelihood; it reminded me of the ladies who belonged to Women in Nation Development for Sarangani (WINDS).
On our way to back to General Santos, I was seated beside a T’boli lady who was wearing authentic native clothes. I loved her skirt that I drooled with envy, I wanted to buy it. She is so proud of her tribe and I loved that even more. How I wish that the other Indigenous People are as proud of their culture and tradition, like the lady. Only wise and mature societies could understand the importance of Indigenous People. Those who discriminate against them are so foolish, I think.
Ms. Imperial is a community based ecology tour provider, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) organizer, nature lover and scuba diver
behn12
Column: ETAL
By Behn Cervantes
Title: From a Distance
I have been to Paris four times. I have been to London the same number of times, but I have never trod the Eiffel Tower, the London Bridge or the Big Ben sites. Ever!
And, I have NO intention of doing so.
I think these architectural wonders should be appreciated, yes from a distance. I do not know the lyrics of the song but they should include the sentiments that sometimes things are to be appreciated ...from a distance, with objectivity.
Imagine my shock when my friends and I chanced upon Stonehenge during sunset. It was eerily glorious. It was beautiful! You understand why ancient Brits made it a religious site. With that glorious thought in my mind, I was astounded when someone warned me about stepping on human feces. In the Stonehenge shrine?! It was the doing of some crackpot who wanted to destroy the spiritual ambience. Indeed, some gang mate of that idiot also peed among the stones so I smelled urine.
What a bummer!
I would have preferred remembering it from a distance.
This feeling of disgust strengthened my position that certain sites are better from a distance. The Empire State and Chrysler Buildings I have appreciated, yes from a distance. When a visiting friend suggested we go to the top of the erstwhile Twin World Trade Center, I suggested he do it alone confessing that in the six years i lived in the New York area I had never become 'familiar' with the now gone buildings.
However, i love surprising friends like Maris Diokno with the delicate designs of the Woolworth Building, a truly under-rated attraction of Lower Manhattan. Actually, its many fine details i connect to the 'poor, little rich girl' traits of owner and heiress Barbara Hutton.
Fortunately, it isn't as 'touristy' as the Empire, Chrysler, or the World Trade Buildings so lesser visitors cross its facade although the building has a number of architectural attractions. In fact, at some point, it was the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan.
I loved both St. Mark's Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower…from a distance. They make architectural sense.
Distance allows a viewer to fill in whatever blanks with his or her own expectations. After all, proximity breeds contempt.
This morning while island-hopping Alaminos' 100 Islands, the boatman asked me "Do you want to get off?" I looked at the garish yellow sign identifying the island and replied "No thanks."
Too often, visitors come upon distracting graffiti and discarded plastic wrappers in venerated architectural wonder. For example, I detested walking though the legendary Banaue Rice Terraces and finding litter on its trails.
I hated the rusty galvanized roofs that now protect natives from the elements. I appreciate instead the grass that once covered their huts.
I also do not appreciate the modern T-shirts with smart aleck sayings worn by contemporary native youth. I think the more colorful native attire would have been far more photogenic for both international and local tourists.
We traveled so far for such color and authenticity, after all. In a near-by hut, I heard American music while a neighbor had a Manila noon-time show. These were aurally and visually wrong indeed.
Proximity does breed contempt.
Mr. Cervantes is a cultural activist-stage-film-television actor-director-playwright-columnist, founder of the UP Repertory Company and inveterate traveler
By Behn Cervantes
Title: From a Distance
I have been to Paris four times. I have been to London the same number of times, but I have never trod the Eiffel Tower, the London Bridge or the Big Ben sites. Ever!
And, I have NO intention of doing so.
I think these architectural wonders should be appreciated, yes from a distance. I do not know the lyrics of the song but they should include the sentiments that sometimes things are to be appreciated ...from a distance, with objectivity.
Imagine my shock when my friends and I chanced upon Stonehenge during sunset. It was eerily glorious. It was beautiful! You understand why ancient Brits made it a religious site. With that glorious thought in my mind, I was astounded when someone warned me about stepping on human feces. In the Stonehenge shrine?! It was the doing of some crackpot who wanted to destroy the spiritual ambience. Indeed, some gang mate of that idiot also peed among the stones so I smelled urine.
What a bummer!
I would have preferred remembering it from a distance.
This feeling of disgust strengthened my position that certain sites are better from a distance. The Empire State and Chrysler Buildings I have appreciated, yes from a distance. When a visiting friend suggested we go to the top of the erstwhile Twin World Trade Center, I suggested he do it alone confessing that in the six years i lived in the New York area I had never become 'familiar' with the now gone buildings.
However, i love surprising friends like Maris Diokno with the delicate designs of the Woolworth Building, a truly under-rated attraction of Lower Manhattan. Actually, its many fine details i connect to the 'poor, little rich girl' traits of owner and heiress Barbara Hutton.
Fortunately, it isn't as 'touristy' as the Empire, Chrysler, or the World Trade Buildings so lesser visitors cross its facade although the building has a number of architectural attractions. In fact, at some point, it was the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan.
I loved both St. Mark's Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower…from a distance. They make architectural sense.
Distance allows a viewer to fill in whatever blanks with his or her own expectations. After all, proximity breeds contempt.
This morning while island-hopping Alaminos' 100 Islands, the boatman asked me "Do you want to get off?" I looked at the garish yellow sign identifying the island and replied "No thanks."
Too often, visitors come upon distracting graffiti and discarded plastic wrappers in venerated architectural wonder. For example, I detested walking though the legendary Banaue Rice Terraces and finding litter on its trails.
I hated the rusty galvanized roofs that now protect natives from the elements. I appreciate instead the grass that once covered their huts.
I also do not appreciate the modern T-shirts with smart aleck sayings worn by contemporary native youth. I think the more colorful native attire would have been far more photogenic for both international and local tourists.
We traveled so far for such color and authenticity, after all. In a near-by hut, I heard American music while a neighbor had a Manila noon-time show. These were aurally and visually wrong indeed.
Proximity does breed contempt.
Mr. Cervantes is a cultural activist-stage-film-television actor-director-playwright-columnist, founder of the UP Repertory Company and inveterate traveler
devera12
Column: Beyond Images
By Atty. Leonard de Vera
Title: We Must Decongest Metro Manila
We live like ants in Metro Manila. Like ants, we go on a never-ending circle of movements leading to nowhere.
We build more LRTs and MRTs in Metro Manila to lighten up the traffic mess. Yet, yearly, we introduce thousands more of buses and jeepneys, trucks and cars, motorcycles and tricycles to ply our narrow streets. We do not create new streets nor expand existing ones. We have created a perfect recipe for traffic chaos.
Let us appeal to common sense. If we create a good railroad (train) system that will ferry hundreds of thousands of people who work in Metro Manila but live in the nearby provinces of Laguna, Cavite and Batangas in the South, and in Bulacan, Pampanga, and Nueva Ecija in the North, imagine how this will greatly decongest the population of Metro Manila.
Not only will it lessen the overpopulation of the more than 12 million people of Metro Manila residents who live in poor and unhealthy and cramped-up conditions, it will lessen the volume of vehicles entering Metro Manila.
A good train system will make daily commute possible from these nearby provinces. The delivery of food, vegetables, goods, products of all kinds can be done in the most orderly manner thru the railroad system.
The air in Metro Manila will be less polluted with smoke and fumes. More factories will move out to the nearby provinces where the cost of purchased or rented land and labor are not as prohibitive as that of Metro Manila.
More lives will be saved as ambulances and private vehicles rushing emergency patients to the hospitals are able to reach the emergency rooms on time.
There will be less crimes of road-rage brought about by the maddening effect of an insane traffic monstrosity. A monstrous traffic creates monsters out of some desperate drivers.
Private businesses and public services of the government need not move out of Metro Manila. But the availability of an efficient public transportation system like that offered by the railroad will encourage these businesses and services to open more branches in the provinces even if they chose not to move out of Metro Manila. More private schools, hospitals, manufacturing plants, and thousands of small and medium-range industries will burgeon in the provinces.
Thousands of steady jobs will be created. Workers will live in decent homes unlike those living in rat-holes apartments and boarding rooms in Metro Manila.
This is one project we must focus on. This is one necessity that will and can justify the grant of emergency powers, if need be, to fast-track the completion of an efficient railroad system. Emergency powers are needed to address the stultifying effects of the squatters and political blackmails of some politicians.
Point to any prosperous country in the world, in Asia, America, Europe and Africa, and you will not find one wealthy country that does not have an efficient railroad system.
Let us wake up from our catatonic stupor engendered by lack of imagination. Let us be thinking men. Not like ants in perpetual motion constantly searching for food. Man not only searches for food but needs a decent home, working in productive jobs, in an orderly and peaceful society. This is what makes us- Human.
Atty. De Vera is a trial lawyer. He is Chairman of the Equal Justice for All Movement (E-Just)
By Atty. Leonard de Vera
Title: We Must Decongest Metro Manila
We live like ants in Metro Manila. Like ants, we go on a never-ending circle of movements leading to nowhere.
We build more LRTs and MRTs in Metro Manila to lighten up the traffic mess. Yet, yearly, we introduce thousands more of buses and jeepneys, trucks and cars, motorcycles and tricycles to ply our narrow streets. We do not create new streets nor expand existing ones. We have created a perfect recipe for traffic chaos.
Let us appeal to common sense. If we create a good railroad (train) system that will ferry hundreds of thousands of people who work in Metro Manila but live in the nearby provinces of Laguna, Cavite and Batangas in the South, and in Bulacan, Pampanga, and Nueva Ecija in the North, imagine how this will greatly decongest the population of Metro Manila.
Not only will it lessen the overpopulation of the more than 12 million people of Metro Manila residents who live in poor and unhealthy and cramped-up conditions, it will lessen the volume of vehicles entering Metro Manila.
A good train system will make daily commute possible from these nearby provinces. The delivery of food, vegetables, goods, products of all kinds can be done in the most orderly manner thru the railroad system.
The air in Metro Manila will be less polluted with smoke and fumes. More factories will move out to the nearby provinces where the cost of purchased or rented land and labor are not as prohibitive as that of Metro Manila.
More lives will be saved as ambulances and private vehicles rushing emergency patients to the hospitals are able to reach the emergency rooms on time.
There will be less crimes of road-rage brought about by the maddening effect of an insane traffic monstrosity. A monstrous traffic creates monsters out of some desperate drivers.
Private businesses and public services of the government need not move out of Metro Manila. But the availability of an efficient public transportation system like that offered by the railroad will encourage these businesses and services to open more branches in the provinces even if they chose not to move out of Metro Manila. More private schools, hospitals, manufacturing plants, and thousands of small and medium-range industries will burgeon in the provinces.
Thousands of steady jobs will be created. Workers will live in decent homes unlike those living in rat-holes apartments and boarding rooms in Metro Manila.
This is one project we must focus on. This is one necessity that will and can justify the grant of emergency powers, if need be, to fast-track the completion of an efficient railroad system. Emergency powers are needed to address the stultifying effects of the squatters and political blackmails of some politicians.
Point to any prosperous country in the world, in Asia, America, Europe and Africa, and you will not find one wealthy country that does not have an efficient railroad system.
Let us wake up from our catatonic stupor engendered by lack of imagination. Let us be thinking men. Not like ants in perpetual motion constantly searching for food. Man not only searches for food but needs a decent home, working in productive jobs, in an orderly and peaceful society. This is what makes us- Human.
Atty. De Vera is a trial lawyer. He is Chairman of the Equal Justice for All Movement (E-Just)
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