Support our fellow Filipinos, cast your votes!
After seeing the devastation of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng that hit the country, two young Pinoys are appealing to the viewers to think about the effects of climate change by joining a user generated video campaign called “Raise Your Voice”.
Paul Darwynn Garilao and Alfonso Orioste, Jr., graduates of De La Salle University – Manila, are expecting to participate with the global leaders, who will convene to discuss climate change in Copenhagen in Denmark from December 7 to 21, 2009.
Dubbed as the biggest convention after Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will iron out platforms to “reduce global warming emissions and ultimately chart a course that avoids the most severe impacts of climate change.”
“Raise Your Voice” campaign is sponsored by CNN, Youtube, and Danish government. The contest encourages individuals to send videos with their views, opinions, and questions about the global event.
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The two best video campaigns will win through public voting from November 6 to 30,2009.
Here are steps to vote:
Visit www.youtube.com/cop15
Click Vote.
Search Philippines on the videos per country.
Kindly click the “green thumbs up” sign for the entry entitled: “Raise Your Voice by Filipino environmental advocates.”
The video can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RanL2KMyo
As of this writing, this is only the single entry from the Philippines and South East Asia.
“We are massively campaigning for our video through social networking sites. Based on our initial count, more than 300 users linked the video to their personal Facebook accounts. We also blasted e-mail to more than 8,000 people to ensure they get our message,” Garilao said.
For the offline approach, we tapped schools and environmental organizations to use the video as a campaign drive to fight climate change. In fact, De La Salle University-Manila where we came from is all out support for the video,” Garilao added.
Their video entry was featured by YouTube together with other four contenders from Germany, France, India, and Italy.
Click the URL here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD7Wof3Eng0.
In the video entry, the young guys discuss disaster management system and major shift to use alternative energies.
Based on viewpoints from a developed and developing nation, they highlight action plans to reduce carbon emissions by industries and implement preventive measures when natural disasters strike. Garilao and Orioste also discussed that simple steps like conserving water and turning off devices when not in use will help
The participants are passionate about environmental concerns. Garilao, who worked in public relations firm in Manila, is now based in Hawaii. A licensed engineer in Manila, his research on Liquefied Petroleum Gas two stroke engines is focused on alternative energies.
Graduated honorable mention in La Salle, Orioste is now taking his law in San Beda College. Orioste said, “As we have experienced the storms Ondoy (Ketsana) and Pepeng taught us a lot of lessons. This is a wake-up call for the Philippine government to implement laws and programs on environmental management and disaster preparedness.”
Garilao added, “We ask our global leaders to reach out to developing countries like the Philippines in helping us craft an effective communications program to respond to disasters. The two storms that hit our country is a wakeup call for Philippine government and the society. For most of our fellow citizens, it is a traumatic experience so they are expecting the government and communities are alert of the super typhoons that may hit the country in the future.”
If they able to generate a significant number of votes, the Filipino advocates would represent the Philippines and raise environmental concerns with the leaders during the convention.
This may also be aired on CNN/Youtube Debates on December 15.
“If we are given the chance to go to Copenhagen, we will return our key learning points to communities and government officials in the Philippines,” Garilao said to encourage everyone to translate their voices into actions against climate change.
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