I Am Blogie

From the time I posted my Venice of the south? piece last April, Davao City has had a couple more floods, and Dabawenyos simply accept it as a fact of life here. But the other night’s flash flood — and the rain wasn’t even that heavy — caused loss of lives (25 as of this writing) and severe damage to property.

We can’t do anything about nature, but we certainly can do something about public infrastructure. Specifically, the local government unit of Davao City can and should. But what has it done?

How much more worse than this disaster is needed to happen before the government gets its act together?

People need to ask the difficult questions, otherwise, this government will simply get away with their ineptness at anticipating crises. Here’s one question: What happened to the money borrowed from LandBank for public infrastructure? This was reported on in 2009. And here’s another one: Why would the mayor say on TV that the city has no budget for flood control? What about the previous mayor’s allegedly unaudited intelligence fund?

Protect the environment!

Nature is trying to tell us something here. If we mess with the natural balance of things, we will pay the consequences. Wait…let me be more specific: the less privileged in society will bear the brunt of the consequences.

The city’s environment code has to be given more teeth, and law-abiding implementers. The city is growing exponentially, and with that comes greater demand for housing and other types of civil developments. That is a good thing for everyone concerned, certainly. However, we must always keep the natural environment in mind before proceeding with more buildings and roads and other public works.

It has been done successfully in other countries. All we need to do is learn from them.

I’ve been published before, but today is a first for me: my story made it to the front page of a local business paper, the Edge Davao weekly. Lead story, baby! The piece is about my take on the protection of the marine environment, especially that of Davao Gulf’s. There is a real difficulty in [...]

What’s the one thing that Dabawenyos always boast about to their out-of-town visitors? The city’s proximity to beach resorts, for sure. The coastlines of Samal Island are dotted with various beach resorts now, but when it comes to having a range of activities on offer, very few stand out like the Maxima Beach House and Maxima Aqua Fun.

Whether you’re staying overnight or just for the day, you’ll find something to amuse yourself at Maxima. Or you can just chill out and enjoy the sun. If you love the world under the sea, take a look at some of the wonders to be seen underwater:

If you’re not a certified diver, you can instead do “intro dives” at Maxima for less than a thousand bucks. They have a full-service dive shop with four dive masters and dive guides and a complete complement of equipment. Incidentally, you can also get yourself scuba certified (SDI, PADI, or NAUI) through the Carabao Dive Center and do your check-out dives at Maxima.

Love the water but not into scuba diving? Maxima’s got a jetski and a banana boat that’ll get your hearts racing! There are also two water slides that both get you landing in the ocean! The guys at Maxima will even capture your thrilling moments on digital video for you.

Would you believe they also have a canopy walk? Above the trees, you can test your mettle by walking a rope bridge from end to end. The view of the gulf of Davao is fantastic!

But it’s not just all fun at Maxima. Environmentally-oriented businessman Sonny Dizon, who operates Maxima Beach, has embarked on several marine conservation efforts, in order to contribute to the development of Samal as a true eco-tourism destination. The transplantation (or re-seeding) of giant clam, which is endemic to the waters of Samal but has all but gone extinct due to overfishing, is one commendable endeavor by the Dizons. Diving recently at Maxima, my dive buddy took this video of a patch of transplanted Tridacna gigas, thriving at a depth of about 15 feet:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CRGGLHC1Ew&w=570&rel=0]

You can tell that the Dizons are focused on protecting the marine environment because they do their best to educate their patrons on the value of preserving coral colonies and other marine life. Sonny Dizon is also working on getting coastline communities (in Samal and in Davao) to stop dumping plastics into the sea.

Maxima Beach, which is located in Peñaplata district, is about 45 minutes away by motorized banca from Davao City’s Sta. Ana Pier (the old wharf beside Magsaysay Park). They have their own boat, which leaves the pier everyday at 9:00am. For more information, please call (82)300-8636, 286-8883. Click here for Maxima’s website.

Browsing through this month’s issue of Mabuhay magazine, I chanced upon the DVR-460 SportsCam by Swann Security. This waterproof mini digital video camera would be perfect for my new-found passion, scuba diving! I think it would be an indispensable gadget for documenting my dives (and for capturing evidence against errant divers).

Welcome to our new blog!

We’re newbie divers who love Davao Gulf, and we’ve come together to document our dives and related activities. We want to share our experiences so that more people will come to appreciate the true value of the life-giving waters of the Philippines’ waters.

The video here was taken at the Coral Garden dive site, off the coast of Talikud Island. It was my third dive at that site, and was part of my check-out dives with the Carabao Dive Center.

I’m Blogie Robillo, and I’m a blogger and social-media activist (human rights, freedom of expression, environment protection). My main reason for diving is to know as much as I can about marine life so that I will be better equipped in my personal crusade to help in marine conservation efforts.

Before starting this site, I had already published several diving-related posts on my personal blog. Here they are:

• 4 June – Scuba Diving
• 6 June – Davao Gulf needs hellp!
• 8 June – Advocating for marine life
• 11 June – The Coral Gardens of Talikud
• 12 June – Destructive divers not welcome

There were two boats at the Coral Gardens when we went diving there today, ours and another group’s. Even though there was a buoy in the area, both boats lowered anchor dangerously close to the coral colonies. One of the boatmen said the buoy was too far out, is why. But, what about the beautiful [...]

Before I took up scuba diving, the place called Coral Gardens was my favorite snorkeling site. Now I don’t think I’d ever be satisfied with just swimming on the surface in this aquatic haven. I had my second and third dives there today — each with a different entry point. (I’m not sure how big [...]

Yesterday was Blog Action Day to Save Philippine Seas, an Internet-wide activity that galvanized local and foreign netizens into a concerted call for marine environment protection. Coincidentally, it was also World Oceans Day. As my contribution, I wrote about Davao Gulf yesterday here and over at my personal blog.

I’ve mentioned that there are individuals in Davao (and organizations as well) who are pouring energy into conservation efforts. Two more of them are Mia Dragon-Floirendo and Maej Villanueva, who are involved in a creative recycling project with a two-pronged goal. These two ladies have adopted Barangay Adecor in Kaputian, Samal, as the recipient of a comprehensive livelihood program and an in-depth awareness-building seminar on environmental protection.

These are the objectives of the creative recycling project:

• To be able to create marketable products made from recyclables as additional livelihood income;
• For the women to embrace creative recycling in an effort to create an environmental impact on the island (in Bgy. Adecor and its neighboring barangays);
• To inculcate the habits of household waste segregation among residents;
• For the women participants to be able to re-echo their training on creative recycling to others in the barangay.

In April 2011, pre-workshop activities included site visits to assess community preparedness, available skill sets, and to document the type of recyclable material present in the area. Workshops were held in May to teach 23 participants how to bead paper, crochet “plarn” (plastic yarn), fuse plastics, and the like. Plarn is made out of recycled plastic grocery bags and such. (Maej happily mentioned to me that, due to the apparent success of the program, the barangay is now running out of plastic bags!)

After the initial training phase, the participants were asked to create household and decorative items out of the raw material they had produced. Here are samples of their work:

I was there to witness the graduation of the 23 participants, an event they shared with their families and the barangay officials who were present. It was quite heartening to see how committed they were to the whole deal: they were in it for making extra money, but also for the environment.

One woman thanked Mia and Maej for having been given the skills training, which she said has increased her earning potential. Another woman expressed amazement at the concept of recycling, that it could in fact bring livelihood to their community. So much so that those who were trained to become trainers themselves became excited about echoing their new-found skills.

This environment-friendly livelihood project is a hopeful one because it finds support from the entire community: from the barangay captain (who happens to be Mia’s husband, Vicente Floirendo), to the barangay councilors and other concerned citizens. Even little children, according to one of the participants, are now helping them by collecting plastic bags and other recyclable trash.

Mia is the project director of this undertaking, and she has resolved to make this a profitable venture for the barangay. She stressed, however, that it should not fall into a charity situation, but as a well-run business. She made sure to not give the participants any impression that, apart from the free training that the community received, there would be no dole outs. The barangay, however, would still continue to benefit from Mia’s support, in terms of business advice and marketing assistance.

Maej was the main resource person of the project. She conducted the assessments and the actual training. She is also in it for the long-term desired effect, which is for the health of our natural environment. Through this advocacy, the plastic and paper wastes of Pearl Farm Beach Resort (which is right beside Bgy. Adecor) are recycled for use in the livelihood project.

Maej is behind Loud Plastics Creation. It is actually a business, but the raw material are sourced from communities where she has imparted skills training in plarn creation. She also carries jewelry and women’s purses made out of pull rings.

I hope that what the indefatigable Mia Floirendo has started in Adecor will spread to the other barangays of Samal Island (a.k.a. Island Garden City of Samal). Also, that the waste segregation practices of Pearl Farm and Leticia by the Sea will become standard operating procedure among all businesses on the islands. Then, Davao Gulf’s marine ecosystem may just stand a chance!

Kudos, Mia & Maej! May we see more conscientious and generous people like you.

Today is World Oceans Day, and it is also Blog Action Day for the Save the Philippine Seas campaign. As part of the latter, I have taken it upon myself to advocate for the conservation of the marine ecosystem in the Gulf of Davao. It’s not going to be easy, I know, but it’s got [...]

Today’s Blog Action Day was organized to heighten awareness regarding the importance of our seas, and to bring about action to help solve problems facing the marine environment. Here are some of the blog posts that have been published in support of the Save the Philippine Seas movement: The Color of Our Seas Take a [...]