Smart employees join coastline cleanup drive

MANILA, Philippines - Employee-volunteers of wireless leader Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) and affiliate Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) have joined forces for the Lingayen leg of this year’s Shore It Up campaign, an underwater and coastal clean-up initiative of MPIC.

Employees from Smart were alongside community stakeholders in cleaning up the shoreline of the Lingayen Gulf in Pangasinan.  The Lingayen leg was conducted last October and is the fourth leg in five key coastlines identified for the campaign that include Anilao, Puerto Gallera, Zambales and Siargao.

“Cleaning up the shoreline is something we can do to help protect the environment and the communities that depend on the resources of our oceans and seas,” said Darwin Flores, department head of community partnerships, Public Affairs Group at Smart.

Apart from the clean-up of the Lingayen shoreline, Smart employee-volunteers also joined in the planting of mangrove propagules to help balance the biodiversity in the area.

Shore It Up is the corporate social responsibility project of MPIC under the Metro Pacific Investments Foundation. Yearly, Shore It Up engages various environmental rescue, restoration and revival activities such as mangrove planting, tree planting, giant clam seeding, giant clam moving, artificial reef installation, among others.

Smart started supporting the initiative early this year. As part of its advocacy in protecting and preserving environment, Smart has planted over a million seedlings and propagules since 2005 in its various adopted sites all over the country.