Young environmental warriors; UST-AB, Sun Cruises spearhead eco drive in Corregidor

When the youth come together not to #YOLO but to care for the environment, you know they’re in the right track.

The University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Arts and Letters in partnership with Sun Cruises Inc. spearheaded an environmental drive in the historical island of Corregidor, in order to preserve its majestic beauty and revive its golden days.

The coasts of Corregidor were clothed with non-biodegradable trash that came from Manila Bay; the island has been the urban cities’ catch basin of trash and litter. It has affected the marine life in the area and has shooed away some tourists because of its unpalatable appearance.

Sun Cruises Inc., the only service provider allowed to tour in Corregidor island, has initiated several environmental projects to solve this problem, but it seemed impossible to totally clean the area as Manila’s trash arrive on its shores on a daily basis.

This year, the company brought students and youth to help them clean the island, and to possibly inculcate to them the importance of working young and working together to see the change they want to see in the world.

UST students, together with Sun Cruises employees and representatives from DENR and the Philippine Coast Guard join forces in cleaning the coast of Corregidor island. Richmond Chi

“Basically, this project is really just all about our heart to serve the community, and we realized that the best way to do that is to do it in our own turf. Since we are the exclusive tour operator of Corregidor, we thought of doing it here,” Sun Cruises General Manager TJ Tingson said.

AB students helped in picking up the trash in the coastline and planted fruit-bearing seedlings as part of the project. In cooperation with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources — Cavite and the Philippine Coast Guard, they were able to pull out more than a hundred sacks of non-biodegradable wastes and planted over 200 seedlings.

“It was such an amazing experience to be able to help in cleaning up a very significant and historic island that is Corregidor. The island has a lot of stories to tell, and I am very happy and proud that we, the young environmental warriors are part of that story. We may have not done enough, but at least we have done something,” Asian Studies student Florimel King Padillo said.

Tingson noted that they will be inviting more young people in the island to help them preserve Corregidor’s beauty.

“This island is heritage. It’s owned by Filipino people. But it’s not exposed to the younger generations. But for us to be able to sustain this island in the long run, we need the younger people to come here. It is a privilege for us to have these students here. I hope when we start posting this on our Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, we get more young people not only to come here but eventually to help us on environmental projects like this,” he said.

Behind its Instagrammable beauty and texture, Corregidor needs help; it needs extra care from the young to be able to live for more years to come. And with young environmental warriors coming together to make a change, this is far from impossible.