Members of the Latter-Day Saints Church during a cleanup at the beach of Parang. One
of the many supporters of the beach rehab program, the group will be at the
beach for this initiative every Saturday and Sunday along with other community
civic groups.
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The children
of the Latter-Day Saints Church members enjoy a day in the sand and water.
While some of them waded in the water for fun, others helped pick up rubbish
that floated in the water. – All pictures courtesy of WILLIE G RELAO/Facebook
By ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ
ON a clear day, you could see
the beach cleaners.
You won’t see the rubbish.
The resurrection of the
beach of Parang, in Mambulao, CamNorte, on Easter Sunday, has finally woken up an
entire community.
At first unfeeling for years
of what was happening to the beach that spreads out right across its backyard,
the community in Parang has pulled together to one direction, and that is
towards the cleanup of the shoreline.
This exercise, in fact, has
become the biggest environmental effort in the municipality of Mambulao never
seen before.
And thanks to the citizens
of this small fishing town, the beach of Parang is gradually returning to its
former glory that awed one and all for what it’s worth – a gift of nature
without a price tag.
Spearheaded by the Mambulao
Mayor Ricarted “Dong” Padilla, who in April 2012 during the last homecoming of
the Jose Panganiban National High School alumni, said that any effort to rid
the beach and the bay of rubbish that was then killing them softly needed to be
sustained, and not just a palliative job, or for show, or for Facebook posting.
Yes, the key word is
sustainability of the exercise.
And sustainability could
only be achieved when everyone in the community – from the kids to the adults,
from the professionals to the jobless, from young and old to the able-bodied
persons – agree to do this job without letup, without expecting for anything in
return -- until every piece of dirt that besmirched the face of this stretch of
sand disappeared for good.
The final assault was
carried out early this year.
Volunteers and local
government workers and locals hauled off tons of community debris brought in
during high tide from every nook and cranny of every village that sits along
the coastlines, whose names we should never forget as the culprits that helped
spoiled it – Malapayungan, Calero, Sta Milagrosa, Pag-Asa, Larap, Osmena,
Poblacion, Plaridel and of course, Parang.
And finally, on Easter
Sunday, the beach resurrected.
The whole community rejoiced
to the happy fact that this piece of a community pride has returned, and
hopefully for good.
Now, the so-called
post-Resurrection exercises should be stepped up, that’s why the beach rescue
program was pushed some more, with Artem Andaya, one of the town councilors,
being named by Meyor Dong as the Cleanup Czar.
So everyday, a team from the
local government and shoreline residents has seen to it that no rubbish is missed.
And during my chat with the
mayor last April, he outlined to me what he thought would be needed to make the
beach a gem in his tourism push, and put Mambulao in the radar of nature
lovers.
But Meyor Dong stressed that
all this would be for nothing if total involvement from the residents of Parang
is lacking.
So, he met with the purok
kagawads in Parang and Plaridel to find out from them how they could make the
beach become another place that could draw visitors, who would be willing to
spend and generate income for the community.
And early this month, Parang
baranggay chairman Wilfredo G Relao met with the village’s entrepreneurs and
storeowners to source their cooperation in keeping household rubbish from
ending up on the beach.
Afterwards, he launched a daily
beach cleanup regime to boost the “Save Mambulao Bay” crusade, which I launched
on Facebook in May 2011 and in MWBuzz in November of same year.
The Parang initiative could
be called “sweeping” since it involves community at all levels -- the baranggay
council officials and personnel, the
Women Fitness Club (WiFi), the Latter-Day Saints (Mormon Church), Fish
Vendors Association, neighborhood association, storeowners, the Women’s Association,
Diwa ng Pagkakaisa, the 4ps (Pangtawid Pamilya Pilipino Program) and even the
association of gays.
The cleanup activities will
target the shoreline and the riverside in Parang.
Each of the seven puroks has
been assigned a daily cleanup job along the shoreline and along riverside.
A pickup point for garbage
retrieved from the riverside and the beach has been designated for effective
collection by the municipal garbage service.
One recent weekend, the adult
members of the Latter-Day Saints members trooped to the beach to spruce it up while
their kids frolicked in the water or sculpted objects from sand.
Allowing their children to
play here with abandon, the church members were confident that all was well
with this place and playing in its sand was one healthy kiddy affair that
should be enjoyed by many more children.
The truth is that the whole
stretch of this sand has been fully rehabilitated -- a state of affair that was
earlier feared would never happen.
But many thanks -- good
things prevailed over bad ones.
What’s going on here daily
is a day-long effort to keep it spic and span, that every piece of offending
debris is taken out with extreme prejudice so that the memory of an ugly beach
that was this beach for decades until last year would be gone for good.
It was a big surprise that the
fine sand along this stretch is gradually recovering after being inundated with
red mud and silt, courtesy of nasty gold mining operations that have been
taking place on the other side of the bay.
And by just looking at the
pictures accompanying this piece, I could readily say that we’ve got a superb
beach that should one day win back bathers and strollers.
Last April, I walked this
beach barefooted and felt the smooth crunching of dirty-white sand against my
soles. The feeling was great – the same feeling I had when I was a young boy walking
this stretch in the 50s.
I surmised that in a few
more months, the sand’s fineness would assume a new grade to make it more
inviting to those who love an early morning stroll by the serene water.
Give it another eight months
and this will become the talk of the town as hundreds of overseas Mambulaoans
converged on this community for their grand alumni homecoming on Easter Week of
2015.
Pictures of this beach
Balikbayans would be seeing on Facebook or in pictures going with this story
would pale in comparison once they set foot on its sand.
But it is neither the pristine
sand nor the modest beach facilities that may draw their awe.
One day, they will see this
beach in living color and feel the balmy breeze from the bay.
And maybe, they would be
amazed to realize that its raw beauty and the movements of souls imprinting
footsteps in the sand are the hallmark of a long-gone love for the environment,
which is now coming back because a community decided to wake up and do Mother
Nature the right thing it deserves.
Long live the beach of
Parang!
To the beach of my youth –
welcome back!
For comment, email: alfredophernandez@thenational.com.pg
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