Lanao del Sur marks People Power: 4,000 seedlings planted

ILIGAN CITY—Lanao del Sur observed the 26th anniversary of People Power Revolution by planting trees in a bid to “employ the same spirit of collective struggle” to protect and develop the province’s watershed areas.

The activity was carried out simultaneously at 7 a.m. on Saturday throughout the province’s 39 towns and capital Marawi City, said Maranao women activist Samira Gutoc.

Some 4,000 seedlings were planted, 1,200 of which were in Marawi’s Sacred Hill.

According to Mindanao State University (MSU) professor Mary Joyce Guinto-Sali of the College of Forestry, the tree-planting activity is just a “warm-up exercise” to an upcoming bid of the province for an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most number of trees planted simultaneously in a single time.

Guinto-Sali said the push for a world record was slated on June 5, World Environment Day.

Last week, the MSU inked a memorandum of agreement with the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for the establishment of forest tree nurseries and facilities to produce the 500,000 seedlings required to cover some 856 hectares of forest land in the province under the National Greening Program.

In Tropical Storm “Sendong”-hit Iligan City, volunteers also planted trees in Barangay San Roque, in a site designated as memorial for victims of the tragedy more than two months ago.

Iligan Councilor Ariel Anghay said the “unfinished revolution after EDSA I is the vigorous effort to care for nature.”

Regina Antequisa, executive director of the nongovernment Ecosystems Work for Essential Benefits, said wider community mobilizations is a must to build the resiliency of the city to disasters similar to Sendong.—Ryan D. Rosauro