About 1000 Dumaguetenos trooped from the Capitol to the Quezon Park last Saturday to join their counterparts from around the world in the movement called Pagkilos para sa Planeta (KP), celebrated worldwide as the Moving Planet, in observance of the International Day to Move Beyond Fossil Fuels.
The group of environmentalists and students from Foundation University walked down the busy North National Highway, Silliman Avenue and Perdices Avenue calling for immediate innovative climate solutions and demand for governments to move away from fossil fuels.
Zephanie Danieles, Dumaguete coordinator of the group 350.org, said off-shore mining, construction of coal-fired power plants, and more roads for fossil-fuel transportation hastens and strengthens climate change.
“KP,” she explained, “is a series of many decentralized national actions. For a developing nation, the country and its people are being continually put in the margins of disasters without the capacity to effectively respond to global warming,” she said.
Danieles said that their group’s vision is one of a resilient economy that provides a better quality of life for all. “Not all investments are good investments. We all need to review our alternatives, rethink basic options and reimagine livable cities. We need to shift away from dependence on individual cars and build a green economy.”
The march for the Moving Planet had earlier caused a rift between the City Council and Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria after the Mayor disapproved the Resolution passed by the City Council to close down Perdices St. from 12 noon to 12 midnight of Saturday to allow the environmental activists to hold activities on the road.
Sagarbarria said he is not against the March passing through Dumaguete’s main business street but he is against the move to close the road.
