Villar leads coastal cleanup in Las Piñas

With an army of volunteers in tow, Las Piñas Rep. Cynthia Villar led a massive clean-up drive of the Las Piñas river in observation of this year’s International Coastal Clean-up.

With the theme, "Our Future, our Choice: Clean and Save our Coastlines," Villar joined hands with Department of Environment and Natural Resources-NCR director Corazon Davis in realizing the vision of a clean and healthy coastline as part of her Sagip-Ilog project.

The Bernabe portion of the Las Piñas river teamed with volunteers who fished out piles of garbage and waste materials from the riverbed.

"This is our way of showing and proving to the world that we are really dead-serious in rehabilitating our rivers and waterways. Let this be our message to other communities as we join hands in cleaning up our environment," Villar said.

International Coastal Clean-Up is the world’s largest one-day volunteer effort to raise awareness among the people toward the conservation, protection and management of the world’s coastal and marine ecosystem.

Simultaneously with the river clean-up drive in Las Piñas, a throng of volunteers did the same thing along the Manila Bay coastline down to the mangrove area along the Manila-Cavite coastal road.

The volunteers as well as Villar, vowed to continue supporting the project by signing a pro-environment contract toward the protection of mother nature including the rivers, waterways, coastal and marine resources all over the country.

"The commitment should really come from within," Villar said. "Paano na lang ang susunod na henerasyon kung hindi natin aalagaan ang mga biyaya ng kalikasan sa ating panahon?"