Save Mount Mayapay advocacy gains support from FSUU alumni

By Johny S. Natad

BUTUAN CITY, Sept. 18 (PIA) - Members of the Father Saturnino Urios University High School Alumni Association (FSUU-HSAA) have pledged to support the environmental advocacy to save and protect Mount Mayapay.

FSUU-HSAA President Minnie Mary Rose Tiu Dumanhug, in an interview, said the alumni strongly supports the ecological conservation of Butuan’s world and natural heritage, Mount Mayapay.

“We commit ourselves to support the environmental advocacy of PIA-Caraga to save Mount Mayapay. As part of our commitment, we will be organizing a signature campaign in cooperation with other concerned environmental groups,” Dumanhug said.

Dumanhug said the environmental signature campaign, which supposedly started last September 14 during a university celebration, was postponed.

“We will be talking again with alumni officials and other environmental groups to finally set schedules and needed preparations for the environmental signature campaign to save Mount Mayapay soon,” she added.

Meanwhile, a member of FSUU-HSAA and Samahang Magdalo Caraga Regional Coordinator Michael Leo Torralba asserted the urgency to save Mount Mayapay.

"We cannot wait for another devastation like what happened in Ormoc and Legazpi and just let our tears do the talking when the time comes. The status of Mayapay is a clear and eminent danger if quarrying operations as well as other environmental destruction will continue. All these must come to an end and we shall all help campaign for this cause otherwise the destruction will bring us deeper than 6 feet way down under," Torralba said.

Torralba encouraged his fellow alumni and the people of Butuan and Agusan to support the advocacy and act to save Mount Mayapay.

“We, Filipinos must protect Mt. Mayapay - the symbol of the aspirations and dreams for progress and unity of Butuanons and Agusanons who belong to one of the oldest pre-historic communities in the Philippines. The threat of its extinction has been hovering over us, and getting worse over decades of neglect and inaction. Thus, if we want our environment to be preserved and our cultural heritage to be conserved, we should support any well-planned movement to urgently reverse the deterioration of our mountain caused by man’s greed for nature’s wealth that really belongs to the state and to the people,” Torralba said.(JSN/PIA-Caraga)