Alminaza: Honoring the Creator, caring for God’s creation

Alminaza: Honoring the Creator, caring for God’s creation

DEAR readers, I greet you once more and pray that you continue to be granted the strength to persevere as we strive to find a way out of the dire circumstances we are in today.

As difficult as the pandemic situation may be, I am at awe at how we are able to still find reasons to celebrate and appreciate perhaps even more than usual many things or people around us that we have likely sometimes taken for granted in the past.

Earlier this week, families around the world celebrated Father’s Day. In the Philippines, we fondly call our fathers the "pillar" of the home, a fitting image for the person who does everything he can to support family members. Children, let us be reminded to always show gratefulness to our fathers, while they are still with us, through our everyday words and deeds. For those of us whose fathers have gone ahead, let us extend the love we ought to give them to the people around us. Amid this health crisis, let us join together in praying for their safety and protection.

But most importantly, let us not forget to honor our loving Father in Heaven, our great provider and protector. What better way to do so than to care for and love God’s fellow children and all born from God’s work of Creation?

I write this with renewed inspiration from a recent virtual gathering. In celebration of the World Environment Month, I had the privilege last week of taking part in a dialogue with colleagues in Negros passionate in upholding the stewardship of Creation and in fighting for the preservation of our home island’s beautiful nature, especially in resisting destructive coal-fired power plant projects from being built within our shores.

It was an insightful discussion on pushing for clean energy for all, which is not only an imperative of the health and climate crises we face today but also a concrete act of love we can do for others and our environment which would be truly pleasing to our Creator. In his well-known encyclical Laudato Si’ (translated “Praise be to You”), which calls for swift and unified global action to address the lamentable state of our environment, our beloved Pope Francis appealed for the end of dirty, destructive energy. He writes: “We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels – especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas – needs to be progressively replaced without delay” (LS, 165).

Negros Island as a whole and many of its municipalities have been repeatedly recognized for promoting sustainability efforts, including setting in place policies aimed at reducing plastic use and preserving the teeming biodiversity in our seas and forest. Moreover, it is with joy that we can claim the title as the country’s Renewable Energy Capital because 97 percent of the power Negros produces comes from renewable sources. This status we enjoy till now--thanks to the brave Negrosanons who firmly stood their ground against the threat of coal projects which proponents have tried to set up in various municipalities.

Today, our youth are leading another fight against a proposed coal power plant in my home city of San Carlos (which, according to a recent statement of our mayor, seems to be inching closer to cancellation). When asked what inspires them to persevere, our brave young leaders say that it is to protect the future of the generations that will come after them, the same way their fathers and mothers did. Indeed the history of Negros’s fight against coal is a history of love--one that we know would continue no matter how many times coal attempts to mar our island.

I do hope that more and more of our people and leaders would join in on the writing of this history. The battle cry of our Diocese of San Carlos is ‘ubuntu’-- we are all in this together. How wonderful would it be for this to be true for all of us as we seek to honor our Creator by caring for God’s creation!

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