by Dong de los Reyes July 19, 2022 Councelor John Pocholo "Choy" Eleazar (Photo from Councilor Choy FB) TAGKAWAYAN, Quezon - Swept...
July 19, 2022
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| Councelor John Pocholo "Choy" Eleazar (Photo from Councilor Choy FB) |
TAGKAWAYAN, Quezon - Swept by breezes, kissed by brine from the waters of Ragay Gulf in the Bondoc peninsula, picturesque Tagkawayan town fitted out a scheme that offers more than food for thought.
The novel program begun in 2019 gives away a kilo of rice for every kilo of plastic.
While the rice for trash swap mainly covers the town poblacion villages, some dwellers in the more sylvan parts of Tagkawayan have been swapping kilos of plastic for rice, so revealed local lawmaker John Pocholo "Choy" Eleazar who heads the town council's tourism and environment committees.
In recent years, the Philippines has earned global notoriety as the third-ranked worst in the world in polluting the seas with plastic trash. Plastic sachets of motley Philippine products from junk food to shampoo and detergents have found their way in the shorelines of neighbor nations and elsewhere.
"Think global, act local" to mitigate marine pollution became the byword for Choy Eleazar who bared that with the grassroots-based drive to bring awareness of environment issues down to barangay residents, the previous year's solid waste collection of 10,000 kilos was pruned down to 5,000 kilos with the enactment of a waste segregation segregation ordinance that he drew up.
"Dapat hindi nanonood lang ang taumbayan. Dapat kooperasyon sa pagkilos at pagpapatupad ng mga patakaran. Kaya tuloy-tuloy lang ang information dissemination and awareness campaigns," Eleazar told audiences of Sentinel Times broadcast on Cool 101.5 radio station.
"Hindi lang sa panahon ng eleksiyon ang campaign," he quipped.
Tagkawayan was spared by the Covid-19 plague but Eleazar and his stewards kept themselves busy in their barangay-based campaign to transform their town into a tourist destination.
He noted that he has learned from the best practices of Marikina City, then under the reins of Bayani Fernando whose efforts had earned the city as the nation's cleanest and greenest.
Tagkawayan boasts of must-see 13 waterfalls for domestic and foreign tourists, aside from its spic-and-span shoreline that looks out to the scenic Ragay Gulf.
The coastal municipality has also earned recognition for its handicrafts that make waves in overseas markets, even its brooms-- walis tambo cobbled from tiger grass-- has proved to be more durable than brooms from the Cordilleras.
Eleazar plied out a corps of marine police to patrol Ragay Gulf waters covering Tagkawayan in a bid for observance of the nation's fishery laws that aim to provide better fish catches for marginal fishers.
The astute lawmaker affirms that laws are meant to touch off reforms in the citizenry's "kalinisan, kaayusan, at kaugalian."
It's the shift in people's attitudes, he noted, that can be most difficult but would bring long-term change.
"Walang magbabago kung wala tayong babaguhin."
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