Metro Pacific Investments Foundation Inc. (MPIF), the corporate social responsibility arm of infrastructure conglomerate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), solidified its commitment to shore up Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, the country’s largest marine protected area in a memorandum of understanding signed last March 11.
Represented by its chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan and its president Melody del Rosario, MPIF entered into a four-year agreement with the Tubbataha Protected Area Management Board, represented by Palawan Gov. Jose Ch. Alvarez and DENR MIMAROPA Region OIC, RED Lormelyn Claudio.
“Our commitment to protect Tubbataha, not only safeguards a world-renowned heritage site but also signifies our active role as members of the global community in mitigating climate change,” Pangilinan said.
MPIF has taken on the responsibility to contribute the needed financial support of P2 million annually for the next four years.
MPIF has committed to integrate specialized interventions under its flagship environmental program Shore It Up! (SIU). Through SIU, MPIF will mobilize its Marine Protection, Inspection, and Conservation (MPIC) Guardians program in Tubbataha. Aligned with its existing implementation in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro and its pending execution in Marinduque, the MPIC Guardians program will serve a bigger purpose of creating a strategic brotherhood in the MIMAROPA region to protect the Verde Island Passage.
Shore It Up! Tubbataha also entails other initiatives such as crown-of-thorns starfish and marine debris clean-up, Junior Environmental Scouts (JES), and its traditional SIU Weekend. PLDT Home, its sister company, will also be instrumental in carrying out other supplementary efforts to support the interventions for the area.
Inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park is a 97,030-hectare Marine Protected Area in Palawan, located 150-kilometer southeast of Puerto Princesa City, at the heart of the Coral Triangle, the global center of marine biodiversity.
The park contains roughly 10,000 hectares of coral reef and houses 360 species of corals — about half of all the coral species in the world. It has also been recognized as one of the Philippines’ oldest ecosystems and is considered an integral habitat for internationally threatened and endangered marine species.
