News and Features
Smart sustains “green” campaign
[August 23 2007/ Sariaya, Quezon] - Leading wireless services provider Smart Communications Inc. (SMART) is one of the first companies to respond to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR) Trees for Life Campaign. Smart employee-volunteers together with the Smart Mountaineering Club recently went back to Mt. Banahaw and planted a total of 5,000 trees.
Smart has pledged to plant 100,000 trees in support of the DENR’s Trees for Life Program which aims to plant a total of 20 million trees from July to December this year. This is the third time that Smart employee-volunteers planted trees in Mt. Banahaw under the company’s employee volunteerism program dubbed S.E.R.V.I.C.E. or Smart Employees Responding as Volunteers in the Community and Environment.
Since SMART began its tree planting activities in Mt. Banahaw in 2005, employee-volunteers have planted a total of 7,000 trees. According to Luntian ng Alyansa ng Bundok Banahaw (LABB) Overall Coordinator Zorem Roxas, 95 percent of the trees planted in the past two years have grown, with some of them now bearing fruit.
“I was excited to go back to Mt. Banahaw. I wanted to see if the trees that I had planted two years ago had grown. It’s like seeing how your kids have grown,” said Rogelio Flores, Network Services Division (NSD) - South Luzon head and a consistent tree planting volunteer.
“By planting trees, we are able to replace those that have been cut. It feels good to be able to help in the preservation of the environment in our own little way,” added Lito Ortega, also from NSD. Like Flores, Ortega has been able to participate in volunteer activities, like those in Gen. Nakar, also in Quezon Province.
Another volunteer, green thumb and plant aficionado Arthur Domingo of the Finance department plants trees because he wants to help prevent landslides. Domingo also joined the Smart Mountaineering Club in 1998 in planting 2,000 trees in Banawe and plans to join more of Smart’s community and environment-related projects.
Since 2004, Smart has been promoting a culture of environmental protection and conservation among employees by conducting tree planting activities among others. More than 50,000 seeds and mangroves have been planted nationwide by employee-volunteers from both PLDT and Smart in various activities. @
