PLM-CHE DID ITWITH LET’S DO IT! PH!

By Bernard Baluyot Jr.

Let’s Do It! PH, an environmental movement, hosted a boot camp entitled Luzon Eco-Leaders Boot Camp 2015 on May 16-18, 2015 at the Sibat Organic Farm in Capas, Tarlac. A diverse group of individuals which include faculties and student leaders from different universities, young environment advocates, and foreign environmentalists attended the said event. Three representatives from PLM Chemical Engineering Department also attended and became part of the environmental movement.

Ms. Ellen Estares, the head organizer, welcomed us with a very informative introductory speech and partially introduced the Let’s Do It! PH movement. She shared how the movement started in Estonia and how it spread all over the globe. She also stated their primary objective, which is to seek climate justice.

After Ms. Estares’ introductory speech, we got the chance to introduce ourselves and to know more about the group. One group is from the Baler Youth Environment Ambassador, a group of Grade 10 students whose main objective is to guard all the natural resources that Baler have and to fight against the urbanization of some places in Aurora. Another group is the Student Council from Centro Escolar University which promotes clean and environment-friendly projects and activities in their university. Some individual participants are: a graduate from University of Santo Tomas who studied international relations; a teacher from Dasmarinas, Cavite; a public ad graduate from Polytechnic University of the Philippines; and a college student from La Union. The participants may be composed of individuals from various fields and region, but all had united for the sake of our environment.

After the get-to-know each other portion, Mr. Anthony started an activity on which we were tasked to walk and imitate a part of nature. It was a memorable event and had really boosted our confidence and our creativity.

After dinner, Mr. Oscar, a member of the Ocean Recovery Alliance from Hong Kong, delivered his talk about how we can save and rescue our ocean. Their group had devised a waste-mapping mobile application called Global Alert on which we can locate bodies of water filled with rubbish. In that way, their group could collect the data needed so that they can come up with a straight-forward solution on how we can stop the rubbish from flowing to the ocean. They already started their project in the Philippines, and had coordinated with the local government units. Their company also coordinates with big companies to convince them to minimize the use of plastics in their operations.

After that, Mr. Renny, one of the sponsors of the event, taught us on selecting organic skin care products and on proper grooming. He also gave free samples of his organic products which got the audience excited.

On the next day, we woke up early for a very unique exercise which was headed by Ms. Ellen. It’s in the form of yoga on which we felt we were one with nature. It was really relaxing to lay down on the grass as we felt the cold morning dew and the cold breeze which made us forget all our stressful endeavors outside the camp.

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After our morning exercise and breakfast, Ms. Patria, an environmental sociologist from Ateneo De Manila University, delivered her talk entitled Greening the Filipino Youth. She pointed out that our country is a paradise for it is a biodiversity hotspot. She also pointed out how climate change is equivalent to poverty for us since we are dependent to nature. Her main concern is the continuous deforestation rate in our country where the remaining forest is only 18.3 – 25%.

We were then tasked to group ourselves to think of ways on how we can help our environment in our community. It was an enlightening experience as I have found out how the youth, especially from the other regions of our country, has already been doing programs and activities in promoting environment-awareness. Some of their projects and activities are: Balik Basura, Balik Gamit; Clean As You Go (CLAYGO); 7 S’s; Paperless Meetings; Piso Para sa Kalikasan; and Environmental Researches.

After that activity, Mr. Roger Caldwell, a chemical engineer from USA, presented his group, the “I Am Walrus”. It is a non-government organization which primarily focuses on the condition of the ice glacier in the North Pole. Because of the climate change, it is quite evident that our ice caps are depleting. Because of this, sea level rises and we can really feel the increase in temperature since the ice caps are the one deflecting the sun’s rays. Mr. Roger and his group has also been involved in energy-related researches and projects such as Generating Electricity from Mango Peels in Cagayan de Oro. I remember that when someone asked Mr. Roger on why he is not focusing on planting trees instead, he answered that if we plant trees now, it will take many years for it to grow, our ice caps are already melting, and it cannot wait that long for it to recover.

On our lunch, we has a taste of genuine organic food which are really tasty. We had a boodle fight on which everyone really enjoyed. We had a taste of their brown rice and their unique blue rice which is just plain organic rice with some added organic food coloring. From there, I never knew that vegetables could really taste like meat.

After that, Ms. Becky Barrios, a Climate Reality graduate, discussed the significance of mangroves. We learned that mangroves are important as it absorbs some of the toxic chemical on its surroundings.

On the late afternoon, we were tasked to clean the nearby streets. It is evident how plastics are the primary type of rubbish found in our streets. Next to it are cigarette butts, plastic bottles, wrappers, etc. We, ourselves, found out that the number one solution in helping us clean our environment is self-discipline. If we train ourselves to dispose our wastes on proper places, then our problems on waste could be minimized.

In the evening, we had a fun social night and went swimming on a nearby resort. It was indeed a fun social night as we had games and felt that we were very close with one another. We also got the chance to know more about each other and their genuine advocacies about nature. It is really fascinating how the youth are really involved in helping our environment.

On the next day, the last day of our boot camp, we have been taught about organic farming. We have found out that there are problems that our farmers are facing especially in the collection of taxes. The speaker also taught us that organic farming is the safest method of farming rather than using chemical-based farming essentials such as pesticides. One farmer there also discussed their composting methods which are: takakura composting method, bokashi composting method; and vermin-composting. We also got the chance to plant our own seedlings which we really enjoyed.

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After that, we had our graduation. And we promised that we will continue what we had started in the camp. It is a challenge for us to apply what we had learned. It was a learning experience that we really enjoyed. As a student of PLM, we will try to propose environmental projects and activities that will encourage every PLMayers to be part of our campaign. We did it in Let’s Do It! PH!

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