Baguio mourns environment champions

ECO WARRIORS In this photo taken in 2006, Bishop Emeritus Carlito Cenzon (left) and journalist Ramon Dacawi meet with children visiting the Baguio Cathedral. Cenzon and Dacawi, who are among the leading environmental advocates in the summer capital, died a day apart this week. —JOEL ARTHUR TIBALDO/CONTRIBUTOR

BAGUIO CITY—A religious leader, who fought to preserve Baguio’s pine trees, and a former newsman who taught schoolchildren to love the city’s forests, have died this week.

Bishop Emeritus Carlito Cenzon, 79, died on Wednesday and will be buried at Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) cemetery here on July 6, according to the Diocese of Baguio where he served as bishop until his retirement in 2017.

Church builder

He and Lingayen-Dagupan Bishop Socrates Villegas initiated the Supreme Court petition that led to a permanent environmental protection order being granted over the Sto. Tomas forest reserve.

Cenzon fought for the protection of Baguio’s pine cover and denounced both illegal and state-run gambling, usually through street marches with members of ecumenical organizations and elementary and high school students.

He also initiated fundraising projects, like an annual golf tournament, to build churches in his diocese and to fence Baguio’s Burnham Park.

He was involved in the campaign to spare the Sto. Tomas forest from an illegal road construction that affected Baguio’s water supply as well as from informal settlers in the area.

At the time, Sto. Tomas had been drawing tourists because one of its communities served as the fictitious “Sitio La Presa” of a popular soap opera.

Cenzon’s body will be taken to the St. William’s Cathedral in Tabuk City, Kalinga province, where he served as bishop from 1992 to 2002. Public viewing is scheduled on July 1 and 2 before the body will be taken to the Baguio Cathedral on July 3 where it will stay until interment.

On Thursday, veteran newsman and retired Baguio information officer Ramon Dacawi died after a lingering ailment. He was 69.

Dacawi used to take schoolchildren through the civic activity, called “EcoWalk,” to the Busol watershed at the outskirt of the city where they were taught about the benefits of the forest and where they planted trees.

He worked with Cenzon’s predecessor, former Baguio Bishop Ernesto Salgado, who helped form the Baguio Regreening Movement.

Before he died, Dacawi campaigned for free dialysis treatment under the government’s health care program. He left behind his wife, Rebecca, and children Johan and Veronica. —VINCENT CABREZA