As part of Saint John Baptist De La Salle’s tercentenary celebration, the Benilde Center for Social Action (CSA) partnered with Manila Doctors Hospital’s (MDH) environment program Green Rebellion for a clean-up drive in the Arroceros Forest Park, Ermita, Manila on January 22.
“The Arroceros Park is the “Last Lung of Manila.”
This was the statement that CSA Director May Flor Artagame used in describing the 2.2-hectare Arroceros Forest Park.
The clean-up drive in Arroceros was prepared by the CSA as “part of our advocacy, supporting organizations that advocate for a greener environment, part of tercentenary event,” according to Ms. Artagame.
As one of the schools located in Manila, she sees the #SaveArroceros movement as an opportunity to become more motivated to contribute of the city’s environment. “This is the first time to involve the whole school, [dati] kasi mga volunteers lang.”
However, the CSA Director believed this is only the first step of involving the Benildean community. She acknowledged the process of the advocacy still has a long way to go.
For Kathy June Fiel, Green Rebellion Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program Coordinator, Arroceros was the name of the street that the forest park resides in, which is now known as Antonio Villegas street.
The eco-park is free for all to visit. In fact, the Green Rebellion advocates for the legalization of the park to become more accessible to citizens. This is because people in groups of three or less may walk-in; group visitors that exceed the limit of are required to send a letter to the superintendent prior to their visit.
Legality issue
“The land title of Arroceros says it is owned by the City of Manila but at the moment, there is this issue of building a school gym inside arroceros,” Fiel explained the legality issue regarding the ownership of the park. She also mentioned the City Hall denies that claim, but argues that people would not have been felt so threatened by it if it were not true.
“The issue on legality is really more on who should take care of it. Kasi ngayon ang dating ay multisectoral, ‘yung different offices, different agencies…we have the City Hall, kasi technically sila naman talaga ang caretaker. Then there’s also [the Department of Education], Winner Foundation, and in some ways kami [Green Rebellion] na [rin].”
Winner Foundation had a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the then-Mayor Alfredo Lim, which appointed Winner Foundation as the caretaker of the Arroceros Forest Park.
“Medyo contentious kasi iyon [dahil para sa kanila], it’s open-dated. They had this 15-year development plan. Sa ngayon, ang isinasabi nila kay Winner Foundation, na tapos na ang MOA dahil lagpas 15 years na,” she added.
With this, Fiel believes the best way to resolve this issue is to renegotiate the terms of the MOA.
As for the Department of Education (DepEd), they claim to own it because they used the (SEF) Special Education Fund to buy the land, according to the CSR Program Coordinator.
Due to the lack of clarity among the governing bodies, plans whether the forest park will be maintained or replaced are still unknown.
The volunteers
Thomas Co, a student volunteer taking up Animation briefly discussed that he first joined CSA projects due to the invitation of his friends, and ever since that he has “always been working [with] CSA with their projects.”
When asked what does he personally benefit from by doing this, he answered, “I acknowledge that there’s not a lot of opportunities for me to do [environmental work]. So when there’s a project like this comes in by an accessible organization like CSA, it’s a good chance for me to live up to that.”
Furthermore, I student volunteer Shaira Tagle said, “I’ve always wanted to be in a cause that saved the environment, [but] maybe, ike a lot of people, I don’t have much opportunities to be in them or its hard to get an initiative. Having an organization that gives you a choice to join them and you actually get to do something good i think it’s a very good chance to actually do it instead of just thinking, ‘Do I have enough time?’”
“I want to be more initiative on joining more projects. Sana someday hindi lang puro grunt-work or maybe someday mag-manage na ako ng project. For personality building, maganda siya because you’re more aware of political issues,” Tagle shared.
Further updates on the Arroceros Forest Park and other environment-related activities can be found on The Green Rebellion’s Facebook page.
