Archive for August, 2006

In light of the recent oil spill tragedy in Guimaras where 200 kilometers of coastline, hectares of mangroves and seaweed plantations affected, I have started this Save Guimaras blog to be followed (still depending on time and resources) by a website.

The idea is to raise awareness and pressure international media and organizations to continue their coverage and assistance. CNN and BBC covered it only for five days; such a short span of attention for something as tragic as this, which reports say will last three years to clean up. I have no background whatsoever with public campaigns therefore I need to ask help from everybody to help me draft letters, articles, create artworks/logo, IT skills (web 2.0) in order to come up with an action toolkit. (This is based on the philosophy and guideline of TIG and other social action networks.To date, the fishermen are being paid a measly 200 pesos per day to help with the clean up.

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ILOILO CITY – After the environmentalists, it’s now the poets’ turn to extol the beauty of Guimaras. Or rant and rave over what the August 11 oil spill has wrought.
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THE Fray Luis de Leon Creative Writing Institute of the University of San Agustin , the only center of creative writing in the Visayas, is calling on the country’s creative writers to come out with poems “celebrating and lamenting the beauty of the beaches and the seas around Guimaras, and other sea wonders in the Philippines .”
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The chosen poems, said John Iremil Teodoro, the Institute’s coordinator, will form an
anthology with the working title, “Poems for Guimaras” to be published by the University of San Agustin Publishing House .
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