Responsible Sarbay citizens join clean-up party

By MELODY JOY J. COSEP

GUMASA, Sarangani (May 19, 2015) – The May 15-16 SarBay Fest also celebrated its 10th year anniversary with a clean-up party by Sarbay citizens Sunday (May 17).

The largest and most famous beach and sports festival in Mindanao, and now, in the entire country, was participated in by over 100,000 locals and tourists.

The annual event comprised of activities such as Sand Sculpture, Beach Volleyball, Beach Football, Skim Boarding Competition, Ultimate Frisbee Tournament, Pinta sa Baybayon, Zumba with the Legendz, Fire Dancing Competition, Bay Bodies, Summer Party at the Bay, Foam Party, and Kite Flying Competition.  

Aside from promoting tourism in Gumasa, Glan and drawing tourists and investors to its white sand beaches, the holding of this festival is also an avenue where the activities are designed to inculcate on the stakeholders and attendees the importance of a continuous awareness campaign to protect and preserve the resources of Sarangani Bay and beaches.

As part of the local government’s thrust to enjoy SarBay while keeping it clean, the activities also included Swim Across the Bay, SarBay Bancarera, and Triathlon for the Environment for the said purpose.

This year, another one-day event was added to the celebration. On Sunday, May 17 at 6:00 in the morning, a SarBay Clean-up Party was introduced by the provincial government together with the municipality of Glan.

Everyone who was willing to partake in the “unique kind of party” was given a trash bag (which was part of the environmental fee upon entrance). For every five kilos of garbage submitted by every person, a token was given in exchange, courtesy of SarBay partners Smart Telecom, 2Go, and Coca-Cola. Meanwhile, the first 50 participants who presented eight kilos of collected rubbish received a personalized SarBay shirt from Smart Telecom.

The hashtags “#ilovecleansarbay,” “#sarbayforever,” and other promotional videos to help clean the surroundings were trending all over the social media sites, thus all followers of Sarangani Bay Festival were encouraged to participate in this pursuit.

“I love this activity. Being an environmentalist, I feel fulfilled to take part of preserving Sarangani Bay and the beaches by simply keeping my personal garbage in my trash bag and picking up other people’s waste. It’s also fun doing it because of the token I received. I’m just a bit unfortunate for not being one of the first 50 who received the shirts. I’ll wake up earlier next year, anyway. Thank you, SarBay Fest 2015 for initiating this Clean-up Party!,” stated Merit Jean Cosep, a SarBay citizen and nature lover.

The organizers of the beach festival expressed their gratitude to every responsible SarBay citizen who stayed and helped until the end of the occasion. Gumasa beach looked as clean and orderly as how they looked before SarBay Fest 2015 kicked off. (Melody Joy J. Cosep/PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR’S OFFICE)