Imagining inspired, sustainable and resilient communities

This is a continuation of our May 3 article about the inspiring roundtable sharing on Initiatives and Best Practices in Sustainability and Resiliency of Local Communities held last April 30.

The workshop participants met the next day, May 1, for a very inspiring tour of the municipality of San Francisco in Camotes Islands with the generous presence and assistance of VM Alfredo. San Francisco is a MUST place to see, especially for eco-advocates!!!

The clear, protected sea, the clean environment, the committed barangay and even household level participation to maintain the pristine beauty and bounty of nature give testimony that we can be proud and upbeat about our own world, that we can be optimistic, that we can imagine a better today and tomorrow, and that BAYANIHAN will produce more bayani and the sustainable and resilient bayan that we all dream about!!!

Our ancestors have long realized the beauty and bounty of our natural environment. Our forefathers among the Ifugaos built the monumental rice terraces through BAYANIHAN, through volunteerism, to be shared SUSTAINABLY for all, including future Filipinos!!! Sustainability and resiliency have long been practiced in our noble, proud past by many of our ancestors all over this country. Be proud to be Filipino!

 All we need to do now is to RE-VIEW, to view the past, with the eyes of our proud and productive ancestors who actively engaged and sustainably managed their environment, and not with foreign eyes or the blinders imposed on us by colonial masters and their contemporary counterparts among colonial-mentality possessing leaders who shamelessly call themselves Filipinos. Change of colonial eyesight and mentality, change of dependent, unproductive practices, change of paradigms can lead to a better, proud, productive, sustainable, resilient Philippines!!!

When the colonial scales will fall from our eyes which caused us to be blind to our own resources and capacities, then we will clearly see that we ARE proudly Filipinos, that we BELONG to what Atty. Golly Ramos, our feisty environmental advocate, described as our biodiversity-rich ECO-SUPERPOWER PHILIPPINES!!!

Our eco-leaders, like VM Al from San Francisco, Councilor Nida Cabrera and Brgy Luz chairman Rian Tante remind us about the importance of POLITICAL WILL in guiding the constituents to sustainably commit and manage their environment. Civil society eco-practitioners like RCE-Cebu, CPAG, PHILSSA stress the importance of the people, the constituents, and other partners and networks, in the spirit of BAYANIHAN, for eco-protection and community sustainability and resiliency.

Former Cebu City Councilor Nestor Archival, Organic Farming and Waste Management advocate Bob Bajenting, USC Professor Glen Green are eco-heroes (bayani) showing how individuals can contribute to eco-protection and to creating sustainable, resilient households and communities. Mr. Elson Homez of Cebu Holdings Inc.-Ayala Land continue to share how BUSINESS can join hands with partners and communities to continue the proud legacy of sustainable and resilient communities and environment. The active participation of young researcher Kaira Alburo, Atty. Ian Manticajon, Dr. Weena Jade Gera and Ms. Claire Jabines, and the other volunteers and students from UC and UP who joined the workshop signal the positive promise and hope that the youth and academe will join forces with all to re-view and remember a proud past and to imagine and actualize an inspired present and tomorrow!

Brod. Rey who joins Bob Bajenting in the Cebu Coalition of Food Security, shared what he terms his “epiphany” at the end of the April 30 inspiring workshop.

He wrote, “from Einstein’s E=MC2, where in we get to be familiar w/ the relationship between Matter &Energy, my personal encounters w/ the relationship between Stewardship & Well-being (is as follows): (C < M ^ humanity) = (W* + H*) Stewardship = Well-being.”

Brod. Rey notes that “one must have a greater sense of Mission upon Conversion, ( C<M) which eventually changes/ reforms ((^) humanity to achieve (=) balances in enhancements of STEWARDSHIP  and (W*) Wellness & (H*) Healing  ( with (*) standing for infinities) and WELL- BEING.

Let us have more, more, more of these inspiring sessions and inspired participatory eco-governance, with inspired and inspiring leaders, constituents, communities, individuals, groups (civil society, youth, academe, women, business, media, religious and more, more, more of our people contributing their being eco-bayani for our bayan through bayanihan!! For other eco-updates, see www.rcecebu.org.

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