By: Emmanuel D. Taghoy
IPIL, Zamboanga Sibugay – “There is a big difference in us advocating climate change and the media announcing and reporting it,” said Regional Director Arleigh J. Adorable of the Department of Environment and Natura; Resources (DENR)-9 during the regional launch of the Climate Change Advocacy Campaign (CCAC) last Friday at the Sibugay Grand Plaza Hotel here.
“This is the reason why the DENR tapped the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) as partner to help promote the Climate Change Advocacy Campaign,” he said.
Adorable disclosed that the DENR has been conducting various activities to advocate climate change for several years now before this CCAC launching.
“When the media do the advocacy, the information sticks in the mind of the people as compared to the information drive done by our experts which would seem more scientific and difficult to appreciate,” he pointed out.
Adorable encouraged the participants “to embrace and adopt climate change mitigation and resiliency now for the benefit of tomorrow’s generation.”
Regional Director Noemi B. Edaga of PIA-9, on the other hand, emphasized that the media are not just onlookers and mere participants in the activity, but they are multipliers of the advocacy.
“The campaign on climate change would be ineffective without the help of the media,” she said.
She also emphasized the use of two-pronged advocacy tagging- the institutional and environmental tags - to strengthen brand equity.
Moreover, the LakasLikasan Broadcaster’s Manual in Cebuano dialect was also launched simultaneously during the said event.
Media personalities coming from Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay have signed the pledge of commitment supporting the campaign to help build disaster-resilient communities.
In unison all the participants recited the “Kalikasan Pledge” with lighted candles, and thereafter affixed their names and signatures on the climate change tarp.
The launch ended with a prayer seeking to change the ways in treating the environment and to act in unity to mitigate environmental devastation.
Representatives from the regional and provincial offices of the different national government agencies, local government officials, and a group of students belonging to the Indigenous Peoples (IP) also participated in the said activity.