Earth Day Everyday

The first Earth Day movement by earthday.org happened in 1970. Forty six years later, it announced April 22, 2016 as this year’s Earth Day. But as they say, this is more than just a single day.

Earth Day Everyday was the message conveyed by the Archdiocese of Cagayan De Oro City (ACDO) - Ecology Ministry last April 17, 2016 (Sunday) at Centrio Ayala Garden. The event was named “HARANA para kay INA”, an acoustic jam for Mother Earth.

This was graced by numerous indie bands: Grupong Laya, Memoronnie, Cookies and Cream, Estilo, Escapo, But Karma Kills, Bloodflowers, Northern Sparks, Bombo Radyo Jasaan Rondalla, 4^th ID Band, Rage of Laura and Glennfalse & Thony. It also featured CDO Archidocese’s Ecology Musicians: Zee, The Right Stop, Dodu Abrio and Ding Cabreira.

Harana Para Kay Ina was a fusion of original compositions by several indie bands and unique renditions of popular songs like Lion King’s Circle of Life and Pocahontas’ Colors of the Wind. The event also included a performance of Malvina Reynolds’ song, “What Have They Done To The Rain?” by St. Francis Xavier Church Social Action Committee Head, Mr. Natz Jumangit and ACDO Ecology Musician, Mr. Ding Cabrera. The acoustic jam was concluded with all the bands singing the song, “Kapayapaan” by Tropical Depression.

To remind the people of our role in our environment, Mr. Ding Cabreira asked the audience to pick up the trash seen at the event area. He even left us with the words, “Basura ko, Ibulsa Ko.”, a movement inviting people to be mindful of their trash even candy wrappers that certainly go a long way destroying sea animals.

On April 21-24, 2016, tribute to Mother Earth continued as the Luna Musikalawaig Full Moon Festival was held at the Ki Bathala Gardens in Talakag, Bukidnon. It was graced by various musicians and artists: Joe D’ Farmer, Lost Tribe, Kamaggong, SinoSiKat, Emann Vibration, Jericho Vamenta, Spy, among others, with Rafael Kiefer, President of Professional Models Association of the Philippines, as one of the organizers. The tribal gathering was on its 5^th year since it started 2011.

The Summer Peace Festival was not just one night, but three nights of expression of love for art and music dedicated to Mother Earth. It was a way to commune with nature whilst being away from the convenience of technology and the internet world, to be specific.

To get to the venue, shuttles were provided and a camping site at the gardens was made available to those attending the gathering. It was nights of soulful music and speaking with the gardens and the river.

Meanwhile, in the north, a beach cleanup activity in partnership with Gawad Kalinga was hosted by O’Tara at Baler, Aurora. O’Tara is a non-profit organization with numerous advocacies like arts and nature. Last February 2016, O’Tara brought scholars of Smokey Mountain to an art tour at Angono, Rizal. Its latest advocacy is coined #advocaSEA for cleaning up Baler.

To sum it up, we can all take part in being stewards of Mother Earth. We can do simple acts of saving nature by throwing our garbage in the assigned waste cans and yes, cigarette butts in their supposed places. Human population is growing fast while trees and rivers continue to deteriorate as a consequence of our actions. We are so much into industrialization and constructing commercial buildings, we forget that every tree we cut, or every mountain we flatten is a pollution we impart with Mother Earth.

Let the passion for Mother Earth of the Archdiocese of Cagayan De Oro-Ecology Ministry, Musikalawaig Organizers and O’Tara be our guide to our personal advocacy in saving our world. There will be no use getting all the money we can from stock market or our rising business if the world we live in will just vanish. We will vanish along with the extinction of Mother Earth – no more food to eat, no more water to drink.

We make the world with our actions of negligence and self-centeredness. Let us try to be selfless and think of all the people living in this world, the future of the next generations, the cute pandas, the beautiful flowers, the relaxing rivers, and the innocent infants.

Indeed, everyday should be earth day.

(Photo credits to David Roa, Kim Alcantara and Yam Otarra.)

Go Green. Saving Mother Earth. Taking Care of the Environment.

Reason for this topic:

Sat, 06 Jul 2013 09:30:00 GMT | By PlasaMSN, Santirta Martendano and Alyssa Woo

Polar Bears on Thin Ice

http://news.ph.msn.com/polar-bears-on-thin-ice-6#image=15

I have not been that environment-conscious prior to reading the news above, but reading the article and seeing news pictures moved me to really be environment-friendly moving forward.

I am aware of the impact of climate change but such awareness had not really drilled in to my consciousness until I saw the news pictures. I want to see a polar bear someday! And since I won’t be seeing one in the near future, I am not letting all you people to prevent me from fulfilling my dream!!!! L0l! I know my basis is absurd but look at the bright side, this moved me to be a Go Green person. ;) (But mind you, I’m not the littering type but not also the Go Green righteous person. ;p)

So let’s start with plastics. I am happy most of the cities are already implementing the use of brown bag. I know it’s quite a hassle especially to most supermarket shoppers but really this is a way to help save Planet Earth. So why not bring foldable eco bags the next time you leave the house. It will save you money too since you won’t have to buy a new eco bag at the mall every time you unexpectedly buy something. So be proactive, bring an eco bag. ;) That way you won’t have to worry about buying something any time coz you always have an eco bag in handy. J

Littering. Let us totally avoid littering most especially small pieces of candy wrappers, bus tickets, torn portion of chip wraps, etc. and of course littering in bulk or big sizes/quantities. There’s a reason why there are trash bins around or you have a pocket or a purse in hand. You can throw trash in garbage cans or keep the trash for the time being until you find a trash bin in sight. Actually I was quite philosophical (pilosopo? :p) when I thought that when the place is so clean then there would be less street cleaners and garbage collectors since we will be needing less of them. But then I thought, the brighter idea would be they will be employed for more meaningful and hazard-free jobs. Like they can be gardeners/landscapers, sari-sari store attendants, etc.

Water conservation. I know one of our ideas of good restaurant service is constantly refilled water glasses. If you are certain you won’t be drinking a drop anymore, please advise the waiters/waitresses not to refill your glasses. You will do 2 things. One, save the waiters the hassle of keeping an eye on your table. Two, well, the heroic one, save water. ;)

Use of recycled paper. Actually, I do not know how used papers are recycled to make tissue papers, or other papers so what I’ll share now is the simple recycling of paper, more like just within the capabilities of human efforts. J

When in the office, you print a lot of reports, right? – or just anything that you need to print. It is not always that what you’ve printed are final copies since there will always be revisions and the like, so for the next set of copies, you can print back to back with the first copy. Or you can do handout style printing. But always print in clean papers for bosses, okay. J

Another in relation to printing – I know this might quite be too much for you but believe me I actually do this. L0l! I know a lot of us are fond of post-its, small notepads and the like so what I do is for back to back printed papers (there are always portions of blank spaces; still adequate for writing), I cut those blank portions and pile them as my scratch papers/notepads. J

Stainless utensils. The lunch provider at the office, to comply with the Go Green program, gave each one of us (avid customers) a set of stainless spoon and fork and a pair of chopsticks (the set you can buy at the mall/Divisoria, etc) in lieu of the disposable utensils they used to give us every time they deliver our lunch orders. I believe it will save them the cost in the long run also while at the same time helping save Mother Earth. ;)

I know there are issues as to using stainless utensils in public places like food court, but I guess the best way for you to ensure proper sanitation is by bringing your own set of utensils - so now you should bring two things in handy, 1) eco bag 2) utensils. ;) If you left your personal utensils and have no choice but to use those publicly used (since most food courts don’t allow disposables anymore), just use the fork since it is assumed to be less contaminated (I don’t know if that’s the appropriate term. ;p) since it is less swallowed than spoons.

Earth Hours. I would have to say I am in no position to recommend this since I’ve never participated in one but I believe this is one good program. Keeping the lights/electricity off for an hour all over the country/world will actually help, what does it do exactly?? :p Anyway, it’s a good practice to help save Mother Earth. ;)

So far, these are all that I could think for now. ;)