DMCI Homes marks World Water Day with creek cleanup

MANILA, Philippines - DMCI Homes observed World Water Day with its employees joining other volunteers in another cleanup of the company’s adopted creek in Quezon City.

The employees collected 200 sackfuls of trash from creeks under the JEM Bridge, Stellar Place bridge and Carmel Avenue bridge in Brgy. Bahay Toro and Brgy. Culiat during the morning cleanup and properly disposed of them. They brought and distributed cleanup equipment, gears and blue t-shirts with the words “I am cleaning up our water” to dozens of volunteers from the Rotary Club of Diliman Silangan, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Brgy. Bahay Toro, Brgy. Culiat, and Boy Scouts of the Philippines (BSP) at the JEM Bridge along Visayas Ave. before all of them descended to the Pasong Tamo Creek to remove trash from the waterway.

It was the second major cleanup of the creek coinciding with the yearly World Water Day by the same group of volunteers in the only Adopt-An-Estero project of the DENR supported by a property developer and the Rotary Club.

 â€œWe want this cleanup to be a regular thing to promote environmental consciousness not only to our employees but also to the residents of our communities,” Jan Venturanza, senior marketing manager of DMCI Homes, said.

 DMCI Homes is the developer of Stellar Place, a resort-style residential village consisting of two six-story and one 15-story condominium buildings. The company’s CSR dubbed Kaakbay gives back to the communities, where its residential projects are located, in various ways. It signed a memorandum of agreement with the DENR in 2012 adopting a 1.63-kilometer stretch of the Pasong Tamo Creek for rehabilitation. Under the agreement, DMCI Homes provides material and manpower support to clean and beautify the creek, including setting up trash traps and serving food to volunteer cleaners.

A DENR official said it is important to have private partners like DMCI Homes and Rotary Club to rehabilitate polluted creeks.

 â€œDENR cannot undertake the program on its own because of its small budget. We don’t have the funds for buying cleaning materials and food for volunteers,” said Wilma Uyaco, head of the water quality monitoring unit of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB), the DENR sub-agency spearheading the Adopt-An-Estero program. “When DMCI Homes adopted the creek, regular cleanup started.”

Marivic Quides, EMB’s interim head for special projects, said the cleanup helps improve the water quality of the creek.