Published January 15, 2021, 9:36 AM
Dioceses in Cagayan Valley have launched a program seeking to plant at least 1.25 million trees in 500 days.
Dubbed as “Missio 500”, the initiative aims to plant 500 trees per day in the Tuguegarao archdiocese, and each in its suffragans: Ilagan, Bayombong, Tabuk and Batanes.
(UNSPLASH / MANILA BULLETIN)
The project also aims to celebrate this year’s 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines.
Launched on Thursday, January 14, Tuguegarao Archbishop Ricardo Baccay of Tuguegarao said the initiative is a symbol of their solidarity, working together, and convergence.
Bishop Elmer Mangalinao of Bayombong said last November’s flooding that affected thousands of families shows “the urgency to protect our common home”.
Cagayan Valley dioceses to plant 1.2 million trees in 500 days
ByCBCP News
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Following the massive flooding that devastated parts of Cagayan Valley, the dioceses in the area banded together to plant more than a million trees in 500 days.
Dubbed as “Missio 500”, the ecology initiative aims to plant 500 trees per day in the Tuguegarao archdiocese, and each in its suffragans: Ilagan, Bayombong, Tabuk and Batanes.
The target is to plant at least 1.25 million trees by early next year.
The program was launched on Thursday before the ceremony for the imposition of the sacred pallium on Archbishop Ricardo Baccay of Tuguegarao.
Baccay said the launching of the initiative was timed for the occasion “as a symbol of our solidarity, working together, and convergence”.
(Photo by Owen Humphreys / POOL / AFP / MANILA BULLETIN)
CBCP Office on Bioethics chairman and Tuguegarao Archbishop Ricardo Baccay said the COVID-19 vaccines will only be able to end the pandemic in our country if enough Filipinos are vaccinated.
But he stressed that each individual person should be “left free to decide to choose to be vaccinated or not according to his or her conscience with full awareness of the obligation to protect oneself from being an instrument of contagion and the further spread of the virus.”
In a pastoral letter on potential Covid-19 vaccines in the Philippines dated January 8, Baccay also expressed their support to the efforts of the national government to procure and deploy the vaccines in our country, and thanked the private organizations who have come forward to help acquire them.
Archbishop Ricardo Baccay of Tuguegarao
(THE TUGUEGARAO ARCHDIOCESE VIA CBCP / MANILA BULLETIN)
The pallium is a vestment made of white wool worn only by the pontiff and archbishops.
The pope uses the pallium to symbolize the plenitude of pontifical office. For archbishops, it signifies the authority given to them by the pope over their respective archdioceses as well as unity with the Holy See.
CBCP News said Nueva Segovia Archbishop Marlo Peralta conferred the pallium on Baccay in a liturgy at the St. Peter Metropolitan Cathedral in Tuguegarao City.
The conferral was entrusted to Peralta as Baccay was unable to travel to Rome, Italy for the papal blessing of the pallium due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.