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Mostly Everything

Time is money, so it might be something worth donating!

What’s worth more? Time or money? There are tens of thousands of WWF Philippines donors who, due to the rigors of the daily grind cannot find the time to volunteer their time. Instead, they donate money. This is great!

As a donor, my monthly financial contribution isn’t much but to make up for this, I started donating my time. OK fine, it’s an excuse to dive, but it is still volunteer work, nonetheless. Last year I helped in the clam seeding project with Anvaya Cove. Last month I participated in a media tour for Cebu Pacific’s ‘Bright Skies Program’ and documented Apo Reef. Tomorrow I pack my gear again to document the Crown of Thorns harvest at Pico de Loro, in Hamilo. The raw footage I take from my dives are all donated to the WWF marketing office, which they can use for presentations and for coral and fish identification. The latter also gave me the idea to upload raw footage of reef fish, turtles, eels, pelagics and more on YouTube — labeling them with the scientific name, description and short factoids, while tagging them with the names of the dive sites in the Philippines. It’s a great way to promote the local dive industry.

I dropped by the WWF Philippines office last week and lately, they’ve been trying to push for more donor volunteers for upcoming projects. It would be really great if all the thousands of donors all get to meet up and network. I don’t exactly know how, but the team did tell me that they have exciting things in store.

If you don’t know where to start, I’d recommend the WWF Philippines Facebook Page. Click on “Like” and join the tree hugging!

Categories
Mostly Everything

For PHP 67,000 you can own a nice, eco-friendly Electric Scooter (e-bikes)

Gas and electricity has been insane lately. You might want to check this out.

Here’s the caption from Lory Tan’s (WWF Philippines) Facebook page:

Electric Motorcycles, now for sale in Puerto Princesa. P67,000 each. Imported parts, locally assembled. Range 60 KM. I rode one. Great. The in-wheel motor on the rear wheel. The 4 batteries are under the handlebars. Silent. Good torque. I want one! Someone should set up a rent-a-motorcycle business in PPC for tourists, using electric scooters like this.

These e-bikes are good for paved roads, not dirt roads. But no heat, no noise. The perfect stealth vehicle.

In the same light, I also found out that sustainable energy providers have been rolling out hybrid Solar-Wind generators for only PHP 100,000.00. A single unit can power a 20 sq meter room with airconditioning 24/7. I say ONLY because you can easily recover from a 100k electricity expenditure in less than two years.

Categories
Mostly Everything

Photos of Apo Reef, Sablayan

Brought down two rigs for our weekend dive at Apo Reef with Cebu Pacific and the WWF. These are shots taken by Mark Limchoa from the WWF on a Sony W300. I had my video rig. In post, I turned the shots into B&W and boosted some contrasts to remove the blue fuzz and add drama from Mark’s. Great turnout! If you want to see the rest of the set, click on to read more.