Green and Go

When RI Pres Barry Rassin was here last July 19, 2018, your Committee made a statement, which was repeated by PDG Obet Pagdanganan at the dinner party itself, that “if only all Rotarians in the world numbering 1.2 million would plant 100 trees a year, that would be equivalent to 120 million trees”. Similarly, if only able-bodied Filipinos, of say 50 million, would plant 100 trees per year that’s equivalent to 5 billion trees. Downgrade it to just 10 trees per year, which is highly doable, it’s equivalent to 500 million trees per year or 1 billion in 2 years. Simple as it looks but the big challenge is how to make it happen.

Over a round of golf and bottles of beer after golf, your Chairman and Co-Chairman Amading Valdez tried to strategize its implementation. Admittedly, the figures are definitely mind boggling. However, we do not actually expect to achieve that in the foreseeable future, but, the most important thing is that in our remaining years we are able to plant the seeds, the Seeds of Change, that the next generations will continue. Ours is to conceptualize and start, the young ones to follow through.

This is the right time to ORGANIZE as for now it’s already late to plant trees. Pag-asa has just declared the start of North Easterlies or Amihan, signalling that we are about to enter summer. We will start partnering with other Rotary clubs, schools/ students through the DepEd and the Boy Scouts of the Philippines with almost 3 million members, of which PDG Obet Pagdanganan is the current president. Actually, PDG Obet had signified a couple of times to partner with RCM on tree planting. The LGU’s and DENR have to be tapped to provide the areas for planting.

RA 10176, better known as Arbor Day Act of 2012, requires all able-bodied Filipinos of at least 12 years old to plant a tree per year. Arbor Day has been set on June 25 of every year. The Church and the Register of Deeds may help enforce the law by requiring those getting married and those registering newly-born babies to plant trees. LGU’s may help too in this regard, especially, when individuals/companies are getting resident certificates or business permits.

In the program we conceptualized, RCM is to act, basically, as catalyst to all its potential partners. We will start the MOVEMENT to plant trees nationwide, eventually morphing into a la-worldwide-phenomenon Eradicate Polio project of the Rotary Club International. Yes, indeed, we envision here a REVOLUTION! For now, we will organize then mobilize later. The road to fruition is rather long and steep. We need the help of everyone to attain a small success for every small step until we attain bigger ones.

We have a huge talents resource in RCM. President Susing sees the Centennial Friendship Trees as one of his pet projects. PE Jackie who is as passionate about trees as yours truly is very very supportive of the project. Join us and be part of the “RCM Green Movement”. Planet Earth Needs You!