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Saturday, July 12, 2003
Local media to mark earthquake anniversary
By Aileen P. Refuerzo
MEMBERS of the Baguio media will gather at the Busol Watershed on Wednesday to mark the 13th year of the July 16, 1990 killer earthquake, by tending to pine trees they have been planting since 1997 in memory of those who died in the tremor.
The environmental memorial service in the city's major water source will also serve as a tribute to the late Baguio newsman and former youth activist Nicolas "Peppot" Ilagan who proposed the establishment of a patch of pine trees as a living memorial to those who perished in the tragedy that almost leveled the city.
From the memorial pinestand, members of the Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club, led by Ramon Dacawi, and the Baguio Press Club led by Geronimo Evangelista Sr. will move to a secluded portion of the forest to tend to more trees in memory of their colleagues who have "gone to the great newsroom in the sky."
Joining them are Mayor Bernardo Vergara and Rep. Mauricio Domogan, environmentalists led by former City Prosecutor Erdolfo Balajadia, who now chairs the Baguio Regreening Movement, environmental and natural resources regional director Isaias Barongan and personnel of Coca-Cola Bottlers, which is supporting the day of remembrance.
The officials will later serve as panelists in the weekly Kapihan sa Baguio which will be held for the second time in the watershed. They will focus on how Baguio coped, recovered and developed after the earthquake.
The memorial service will open with prayers by the mambunong (Igorot priests) as was done in previous anniversaries and when Ilagan was honored a week after he died last March 17 at 55.
Ilagan was part of a media team led by Dacawi, which conceptualized and launched a children's environmental program in 1992, to provide kids an environmental first-hand learning experience and the opportunity to help save the water source.
Dubbed "Eco-Walk," the program won for the children-participants the Global 500 Roll of Honor for Outstanding Environmental Achievement presented by the United Nations Environment Program on World Environment Day last year in Shenzhen, China.
Supported by volunteers led by the Timpuyog Iit, the program is patterned after the indigenous forest management practices of the Igorots of the Cordillera.
It also won for the 1995-1996 "Galing Pook" national award for the City Government as one of the country's most innovative and creative local governance programs, and is now being used as a case study in international watershed management trainings and in reference materials.
(July 12, 2003 issue)
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