A MOTIVATIONAL speaker from Parang is batting for the launch of a “Sagip Parang beach” program that would take care of the clean-up, rehabilitation and maintenance of the community beach.
Aldrin Toribio, founder of Unlad Panganiban Movement, has seen the degradation of the community beach from a pristine weekend “languyan” to a dumping ground for community rubbish.
He said: Isa sa problema natin ang kawalang-habas na pagtatapon ng dumi ng tao sa baybayin, sanhi na rin ng kawalan ng toilet.
“This is one void that we to fill, with the involvement of the community,” Toribio said.
He is proposing the creation of volunteer groups that would help in the beach clean-up, giving at least one to two hours of their free time on weekends.
Schoolchildren of Parang as well as those studying at the Jose Panganiban National High School should be oriented on the importance of having a clean beach and to get them involved.
This way, they would appreciate the need to help in the clean-up, which could be carried out one weekend every month, Toribio said.
But the campaign should give more focus on households along the shore, who are believed to be the No. 1 culprits in spoiling the beach, Toribio said.
They should be the first group to be made aware of the situation, because they have treated the beach as their backyard, and therefore, their dumping ground for their wastes, including their excreta, he said.
A monitoring team should be created composed of the members of the “purok” units covering households along the beach to prevent any attempt of households to dump their rubbish on the beach.
Toribio said that he is aware of the lack of toilet facilities among the seashore households and that it is one issue that his Unlad Panganiban Movement will try to address.
He said that there should be a baranggay toilet in each of the six “puroks” in Parang, which should be built after a survey to find out how many households are without toilets.
These six public toilets could get funding from the municipal government and from fundraising drive that would involved the members of the community, Toribio said.
He said that environmental sanitation is one of the targets under the Php202 million development funding that the municipal government of J Panganiban is going to get starting this month.
These baranggay toilets would help discourage the dumping of human wastes into the beach area, he said.
Parang beach stretches from the poblacion of Mambulao to the other side of baranggay Parang where it ends up just next to the road leading to Larap.
These days Parang beach is a sorry sight: its entire stretch of what used to be fine, untainted light-brown sand, has been inundated by all forms of waste pollutants that also included human excreta.
Except for the members of squatter households that have occupied the entire beach area since the early 70s and families of fishermen, Mambulaoans have avoided the place like a plague.
When the founder-editor of MWBuzz – Alfredo P Hernandez -- saw the sad state of the beach last April, he immediately launched a crusade on Facebook called Taga Jose Panganiban Ka Ba?
(http://www.facebook.com/groups/214550788572931/) to make Mambulaoans who happened to visit the site be aware of the declining quality of the coastal water and the beach itself that has become a virtual rubbish dumping ground.
A resident of Parang whose family home is just about 700 meters from the shore, Hernandez also posted pictures of the Parang beach to dramatize the need to rescue it from the worsening polluted condition.
Now, Toribio has the same feeling for the beach, where he used to swim in during his younger days.
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| The community should now act to save this beach - the Parang beach. - MWBuzzpic by AP HERNANDEZ |
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