Inter-faith group addresses poverty, other issues

"We need a political will that springs from a creation-centered spirituality that will make us commit ourselves to the care of the earth with the spiritual power to go beyond vested and exclusive partisan and selfish interest, mindful of the common good of all peoples on earth and of a just and lasting global peace."

This was the call of Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen, President of the Community Action and Respect for our Environment (CARE) Foundation Inc., as he addressed 60 participants consisting of heads/representatives of the different religious denominations, and DENR officials from the National Capital Region (NCR), and Regions 4 and 5, during the Orientation in the Implementation of AMP. The activity was held on March 11-13 at the De Meesters Seminar House, D. Tuazon, Quezon City.

The orientation, the first in a series of six, signals the start of actions by the Inter-Faith Group (Catholics, Muslims, Methodists, Independent Church and other religious groups) to address the challenges of poverty and degradation of resources in the mountains through reforestation and other cooperative actions on their constituents.

In order to ensure success of AMP and to ensure that their wish to contribute to "creation," the participants, grouped according to their regions (NCR, Region 4, and Region 5), prepared their respective plan of action. The DENR officials from the concerned regions assured them of technical assistance in carrying out their plans.

The orientation was a follow through activity proposed by CARE after the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement between the then DENR Secretary Heherson T. Alvarez and CARE Foundation president Bishop Julio Xavier Labayen on Sept. 19, 2002, in CARAGA Region.

The MOA signing was one of the highlights in the launching of the Adopt-A-Mountain/Watershed/Bay/Creek Programs in celebration of International Year of the Mountain (IYM) last year. DENR Secretary Elisea "Bebet" G. Gozun, showed support of her predecessor’s program by allowing the DENR’s National Forestration Development Office and the Human Resources Management Service to implement the orientation. Because of the success of the first gathering, CARE hopes that similar orientation will be held for the remaining five Inter-regional clusters namely: Northern Luzon, Central Visayas, Western Visayas, Central Mindanao, and Northern Mindanao.