Wednesday night (January 30, 2008), I came home from my sister's birthday get-together dinner in SM Mall of Asia (MOA). Although it was my second time to go to MOA, I couldn't help myself but compare it with some malls in Singapore, in fact, it felt like I was in Singapore. And again that wishful thinking, when will Metro Manila become like Singapore? At home, after an hour's drive, I relaxed a bit on our sofa and watched some of the new teleseryes on TV. Three new teleseryes started this week in ABS-CBN Channel 2: Kung Fu Kids, Palos, and Lobo. After these teleseryes, came the news program, and then one of my favorite news-magazine programs, The Probe. Something caught my attention in one of its segments - and it was some good thing happening in Marikina.
Have you heard anything about Marikina lately? We all know that it's called the shoe capital or the shoe city of the Philippines. But nowadays it's more than that. It's being tagged now as the Singapore of Metro Manila. The city is totally clean, yes Maria, you don't see garbage around. There are no sidewalk vendors so the sidewalks are clear and wide for the sidewalkers to sidewalk by (I mean pedestrians to walk on the sidewalks.) The markets there are sanitary and are not smelly. You don't see half-naked men roaming on the road nor do you see them having a drinking spree along the streets as these are ban in Marikina. And the once over-polluted Marikina River is now being revived, cleaned and now a romantic spot in Marikina Park. So many scenes in movies and TV programs have been shot there. The residents there have discipline; they follow their city's laws and regulations and they obey traffic rules. It's fantastic; it's unbelievable for a city like that to exist in Metro Manila. If you're planning to go back home, then you should visit Marikina. Besides the Marikina Park, where it's big enough for you to spend the whole day roaming around, they have a new swimming resort, a butterfly park, and a shoe museum where you can find the world-record biggest shoe in the world. I'm not into politics so much, but allow me to mention the person who started it all in Marikina who is their former Mayor and now the Head of MMDA (Metropolitan Manila Development Authority) Chairman Bayani Fernando. But at present, the leadership in Marikina is passed on to his wife, Ma. Lourdes Fernando, now the mayor of Marikina.
But what really got my attention about Marikina in the Probe program of Ms. Cheche Lazaro? It's the recycling garbage system that they have implemented among the public school students and their parents in their locality. Oh, what a big deal, it's just garbage! Yes it is, and it involves about thousands of students and their parents in Marikina and the total income generated from this effort is translated into millions of pesos. How's that? The students in public schools are instructed to tell their parents at home to segregate their garbage - that is to separate the paper, the glass bottle containers and the plastic. The students bring these to the school where it will be weighed and recorded accordingly in each student's passbook. They earn points for bringing the recyclable materials; the more they bring, the more they gain points. One point is equivalent to a peso. If a student brings a kilo of used paper, and if a kilo of used paper is five pesos, then he gets five points. The student is paid fair and square. The accumulated points gained by the student can be exchanged for some grocery items in the school, like cooking oil, biscuits, instant noodles, spaghetti, or maybe laundry soap - what's good about this is they don't exchange this for cash as the students or the parents might be tempted to use the money in some other way if they get the cash. Because of this program, the students and the parents are encouraged to recycle their garbage. Likewise, the students learn to save or be a part of a small livelihood. The big picture in this is the city has reduced its garbage disposal by over 30%. The city government also saves in paying for the garbage trucks that collects the residents' garbage as there is less garbage to get. It also creates jobs as the business of "junk shops" (I think it would be better to call them "recycling shops") thrive on this so they expand and hire additional workers. Most of all, we save the environment from so much garbage disposable.
As I was watching the segment in The Probe program, I was sighing "that's very very good..." Only, if all the cities in Metro Manila or even all the cities in the Philippines will copy that.
That something good in Marikina is just a drop of water in a bucket but I'm really hoping it will create ripples everywhere.
To know more about Marikina’s vision as a model city, click on this link http://city.marikina.gov.ph/
Have you heard anything about Marikina lately? We all know that it's called the shoe capital or the shoe city of the Philippines. But nowadays it's more than that. It's being tagged now as the Singapore of Metro Manila. The city is totally clean, yes Maria, you don't see garbage around. There are no sidewalk vendors so the sidewalks are clear and wide for the sidewalkers to sidewalk by (I mean pedestrians to walk on the sidewalks.) The markets there are sanitary and are not smelly. You don't see half-naked men roaming on the road nor do you see them having a drinking spree along the streets as these are ban in Marikina. And the once over-polluted Marikina River is now being revived, cleaned and now a romantic spot in Marikina Park. So many scenes in movies and TV programs have been shot there. The residents there have discipline; they follow their city's laws and regulations and they obey traffic rules. It's fantastic; it's unbelievable for a city like that to exist in Metro Manila. If you're planning to go back home, then you should visit Marikina. Besides the Marikina Park, where it's big enough for you to spend the whole day roaming around, they have a new swimming resort, a butterfly park, and a shoe museum where you can find the world-record biggest shoe in the world. I'm not into politics so much, but allow me to mention the person who started it all in Marikina who is their former Mayor and now the Head of MMDA (Metropolitan Manila Development Authority) Chairman Bayani Fernando. But at present, the leadership in Marikina is passed on to his wife, Ma. Lourdes Fernando, now the mayor of Marikina.
But what really got my attention about Marikina in the Probe program of Ms. Cheche Lazaro? It's the recycling garbage system that they have implemented among the public school students and their parents in their locality. Oh, what a big deal, it's just garbage! Yes it is, and it involves about thousands of students and their parents in Marikina and the total income generated from this effort is translated into millions of pesos. How's that? The students in public schools are instructed to tell their parents at home to segregate their garbage - that is to separate the paper, the glass bottle containers and the plastic. The students bring these to the school where it will be weighed and recorded accordingly in each student's passbook. They earn points for bringing the recyclable materials; the more they bring, the more they gain points. One point is equivalent to a peso. If a student brings a kilo of used paper, and if a kilo of used paper is five pesos, then he gets five points. The student is paid fair and square. The accumulated points gained by the student can be exchanged for some grocery items in the school, like cooking oil, biscuits, instant noodles, spaghetti, or maybe laundry soap - what's good about this is they don't exchange this for cash as the students or the parents might be tempted to use the money in some other way if they get the cash. Because of this program, the students and the parents are encouraged to recycle their garbage. Likewise, the students learn to save or be a part of a small livelihood. The big picture in this is the city has reduced its garbage disposal by over 30%. The city government also saves in paying for the garbage trucks that collects the residents' garbage as there is less garbage to get. It also creates jobs as the business of "junk shops" (I think it would be better to call them "recycling shops") thrive on this so they expand and hire additional workers. Most of all, we save the environment from so much garbage disposable.
As I was watching the segment in The Probe program, I was sighing "that's very very good..." Only, if all the cities in Metro Manila or even all the cities in the Philippines will copy that.
That something good in Marikina is just a drop of water in a bucket but I'm really hoping it will create ripples everywhere.
To know more about Marikina’s vision as a model city, click on this link http://city.marikina.gov.ph/
