Noy graces herbal project launch in Tarlac

ANGELES CITY, Philippines  – President Aquino graced yesterday the launching of “Hardin ng Lunas” in Moncada, Tarlac, a project aiming to provide the sick with herbal alternatives. 

“The project, which started last June 20, seeks to provide an alternative, affordable and sustainable form of treatment for folk who have no access to a physician, hospital or Western medicine,” said Dr. Isabel Cojuangco Suntay, Hardin ng Lunas project leader.

Suntay said the project would “encourage farmers, local government units, housewives, teachers, school children, and other Tarlaqueños to plant organic vegetables in their backyards, idle lands or in used containers.”

“It will make organically farmed vegetables part of one’s daily meals and give livelihood to beneficiaries who can play a vital role in the food chain as well as in the protection of Mother Earth,” she added.

Hardin is a collaboration of Suntay, San Miguel Corp., East West Seed Co. Inc., and Tarlac Heritage Foundation.

Suntay said the project would initially benefit residents of the towns of Moncada, Anao, Pura, Paniqui, San Manuel, Camiling and Gerona, and Tarlac City.

“Hardin holds trainings for its target beneficiaries or anyone who is interested at its demo site in Barangay Camangaan East in Moncada town or we go directly to them if the place is too far,” Suntay said.

“We train our participants on organic vegetable farming methods, expose them to new technologies in the field, introduce new crop varieties, give seedlings that are ready to be transplanted, and link them to potential buyers of these vegetables outside their communities if they are not able to sell them there,” she added.  

Under the project, Suntay said there would be 25 varieties of medicinal plants per town and city in the province. These plants were raised and nurtured at the Tarlac College of Agriculture (TCA).

Suntay said the TCA are now teaching the recipients how to take care of these plants while experts from the Department of Dermatology of the St. Luke’s Medical Center would train them on how to use the plants as alternative to costly medicine.