City forges partnerships to protect environment

ANGELES CITY – The City Government here forged partnership with civic group Rotary Club of Angeles and religious organization Curia Sancti Rosarii to promote environmental awareness, protection and preservation.

Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan said this kind of agreement is a “living example” of what public-private partnership for development should really be.

“We still have a long way to go, but through our partnership with the Rotary Club and the Church, we have made the necessary steps to mitigate the effects of climate change and enhance the state of the city’s natural environment,” Pamintuan said.

The city currently holds the monthly “Lingap king Balen, Sagip Sapang Balen” program where scores of people rally together to conduct regular clean-up drives and declog the city’s waterways from the accumulated garbage coming from the residents of the nearby creeks.

Pamintuan described the program as phase one of his long term plans for environmental protection.

He said that they are now looking forward to the possibility of entering into phase two.

“Phase two will allow us to impose the necessary sanction of the law for indiscriminate waste disposal. We will have to enforce the law through penalties, fines and make violators subject to community work to instill discipline among our constituents,” the mayor added.

For his part, Pampanga Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio S. David, chairman of the Curia Sancti Rosarii, said “the responsibility [of protecting the environment] does not solely lie on the government, but of its citizens as well.”

The bishop suggested that there should be an “aggressive promotion” of establishing materials recovery facilities (MRF) on each of the 33 barangays of the city to help in the proper segregation of wastes.

Teofilo Del Rosario, Rotary Club of Angeles Assistant Governor, said they currently have eight clusters, which will cooperate with the Angeles City local government to conduct regular tree-planting activities in their respective adopted communities and maintain the same to ensure their survival.

“Angeles City is very fortunate to not be affected by the typhoons and floods that hit the country. However, we never can tell what will happen in the future, so, it is best that we come up with solutions for waste disposal.”

Del Rosario added that the agreement signing will also allow them to develop appropriate and creative information materials to educate the members of their adopted community regarding climate change mitigation, risk reduction and adaptation.

Meanwhile, Bishop Jose Briones of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and also current head of the Task Force One-Million Trees program in the city vowed to supplement the partnership between the local government and the said organizations through supplying them with the seedlings for sustainable plans of cleaning and greening the city.

He added that due to the lack of space for further tree planting, they are now working with homeowners associations within several subdivisions in the city to engage citizens to do backyard planting.

Pamintuan believes that the strength of this newly formed public-private partnership, which thrives on the principle of cooperation, collaboration and resource-pooling, will definitely aid the city, not only in environmental protection, but in other developmental programs as well.