MANILA, Philippines - Late in November last year, a group of young surfers put together the first Philippine National Surfing Convention, which turned out to be the largest ever gathering of surfers in Asia. So impressively successful was the event in terms of its aims, objectives, and actual execution that it helped convince the Department of Tourism to include surfing as a prime component of its marketing and promotions programs.
All in their late 20s or early 30s and among the top local surfers, these young men — Corey Wills, Luke Landrigan, Lui Tortuya, and Paolo Soler — with the help of their many surfing buddies, all volunteers, succeeded in bringing together for the first time the country’s main surfing stakeholders to generate plans and programs for the enhancement of the sport. Attendees were individual surfers, surfing instructors, surf resort owners, officials of the local government units (LGUs) of localities with actual or potential surfing resources, and top officials of national government offices and agencies with pertinence to surfing, including the DOT, the Department of Education, Philippine Red Cross, Philippine Sports Commission. Foreign entities like the Academy of Surfing Instructors in Australia and the Australian Trade Commission’s Philippine representative were also active participants.
The conference was a vivid example of how concerned citizens, particularly the youth, can bring about desirable changes in the country in terms of approaches to improve our people’s socio-economic, health, and educational lifestyles.
Barely two months later, Soler got the help of other volunteers: surfers Excel Figueroa, Corey Wills, Kage Gozun, Jam Choa, Lorraine Lapus, Mia and Nicola Sebastian, Lui Tortuya, Jukka Holopainen, and Paulino Servando, among others, as well as several enthusiasts of other sports and art forms to display the interaction between sports and the protection of the environment. The group will do this through a series of activities called Angat Dagat Eco Festivals. Noting that surfing and its related sport, skateboarding, are among the most eco-friendly sports activities, the festivals will use these two sports as examples of how other sports and the ecology can exist together without resulting in any eco-degradation. Angat Dagat Festivals will team up sports and art groups, government, civic, and other concerned groups to show that sports can exist in synergy with the promotion of ecological awareness, preservation, and even eco-tourism.
The festivals will achieve this goal by means of eco-tourism seminars to be conducted by NGO experts from the Ocean-Action Resource Center and Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines for students in local schools and agricultural associations in the various venues as well as an actual workshop and demo program called Captain Planet Camp. The latter will provide entertainment and lessons by different groups of artists and athletes in a combo of activities that involve a select number of art forms and action sports that require only “free energy.”
While the initial Angat Dagat program took place last February 18 to 20 in Real, Quezon, this will only be the first of a nationwide campaign that will be replicated in other municipalities in Bataan, Subic, and other selected provinces. Real was selected as the pilot location for the nationwide campaign because it recently suffered major ecological damage in the form of landslides due to typhoons, which the eco-seminars will help residents learn to abate through good ecology practices, such as reforestation and the prevention of illegal logging and mining activities, among other environmental conservation and preservation practices.