Manila Water celebrates generations of hope on Arbor Day

In celebration of this year’s Arbor Day, Manila Water and its partners gathered for the Year 3 of the Company’s annual Arbor Day event “Punong-puno ng Pag-asa” to celebrate how planting of trees supports generations of life on Earth. Dubbed as “Punong-puno ng Pag-asa: Generations of Hope”, Manila Water invited forty-five (45) public school students from Batino Elementary School in Quezon City to take part in discussions and activities on the role of trees in maintaining balance in the environment and the responsible use of water.

MANILA, Philippines – In celebration of this year’s Arbor Day, Manila Water and its partners gathered for the Year 3 of the Company’s annual Arbor Day event “Punong-puno ng Pag-asa” to celebrate how planting of trees supports generations of life on Earth.

Dubbed as “Punong-puno ng Pag-asa: Generations of Hope”, Manila Water invited forty-five (45) public school students from Batino Elementary School in Quezon City to take part in discussions and activities on the role of trees in maintaining balance in the environment and the responsible use of water, led by Manila Water’s Water Sources Operations Department and Advocacy and Research Department. The students also partnered with their Katubig Kuyas and Ates for a terrarium creation workshop led by Froilan Garcia of Terraplantae.

Also present in the event were Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) Administrator Leonor “Bobby” C. Cleofas, DENR-NCR Metropolitan Environment Office-East OIC-Director Virgilio L. Licuan, Section Chief of the Low Carbon Development Section, Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Department-Quezon City Joemar Capili, and Manila Water President and CEO Jocot De Dios.

“Nakikita nyo po na nagkakaroon ng interruption sa serbisyo dahil yung nakukuha po natin na raw water ay madumi ang kalidad. Kaya importante na maibalik natin ang kasaganaan ng ating watershed. Ito ay makukuha lang kung tayo ay magtatanim [ng mga puno]. Ang MWSS, ang aming target, kada taon, kailangan makapagtanim ng 1 million na puno. [As raw water quality issues can cause water service interruptions, it is very important that we continue to enrich our watersheds through planting of trees. For MWSS, we commit to plant 1 million trees every year.]” shares Cleofas.

Aside from the Arbor Day celebration, the event also served as the kick-off of Manila Water’s PASIBOL program, a tree nurturing and reforestation program intended to involve Manila Water employees or “Katubigs” from the East Zone and Non-East Zone business units and their stakeholders in environmental stewardship through the establishment of nurseries, tree planting and maintenance of trees planted.

Through the event, Manila Water looks back at the efforts of the Company and its people in the past several years of tree-planting activities. The Company remains hopeful that love for nature will be carried over by the future generations while maintaining the current work that is already being done. Aside from planting and nurturing 580,000 trees until 2025, also part of Manila Water’s new Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) targets is the reforestation of 1,000 hectares of watershed areas across the Philippines.

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“Hindi lang dapat natin ipinagdidiwang ang Arbor Day ng isang araw lang. Bawat pagkakataon na pwede tayong magtanim ng puno, magbigay-buhay, gawin po natin yan. Yun po ang mensahe, yun po ang ginagawa natin sa Pasibol, [The commemoration of Arbor Day should not be just for a day. Let’s seize every chance we have to plant trees and to give life. That is the message, that’s what we do in Pasibol,]” says De Dios.

The event was capped with a signing of pledge on the participants’ hopes for the environment and the Katubigs’ promise to the younger generation.