‎

On January 15, 2025, the School of Computing (SoC)’s student council, publication, organizations, and faculty went to Sitio Target, Sapangbato, to commence Planting Pixels Initiative–a tree planting outreach.

Supposed to be held on October 29, 2024, the tree planting outreach was postponed due to the unavailability of the faculty staff as the outreach was scheduled around the end of exam week. Nevertheless, the outreach was able to carry on after the second semester of the school year 2024-2025 preliminaries.

The beneficiary for the outreach is Abacan River and Angeles Watershed – Advocacy Council Inc. (ARAW-ACI), a non-profit organization that promotes water security and watershed conservation. 

In an online interview with Christine Mae Yunun, the councilor for Community Extensions and the officer-in-charge of the outreach, she stated that the planting pixel initiative hopes to “not only contribute to the environment but also to support our Aeta community. Beyond that, we wanted to raise awareness about the importance of preserving our watersheds.” They hope to inspire people to take action towards a more sustainable and inclusive future for the community. When asked why they chose ARAW-ACI as the beneficiary, Yunun stated “We [CSC-SoC] chose ARAW-ACI because their mission to protect and rehabilitate watersheds aligns closely with our vision.” The chosen beneficiaries promote environmental stewardship and empower our indigenous communities. ARAW-ACI’s inclusivity supports the Aeta community through their involvement with the advocacy— preserving natural resources.

ARAW-ACI’s advocacy addresses the problem of water depletion in Angeles City. Architect Alex Ocampo, a representative present from ARAW-ACI, mentioned “siguro mga four years lang… [m]nahihirapan na tayo sa tubig natin sa Angeles [City], kaya ngayon palang nagtatanim na tayo.” Through their advocacy, they aim to encourage more people to care for water as a resource– one of the most important ones. As scarcity in water resources can cause major problems in hygiene through inadequate sanitation, leading to many sicknesses in the community. In just under four years, Angeles City could be experiencing this, that’s why a sense of urgency is present in carrying out the advocacy.

The initiative was able to successfully plant a total of 100 trees– 80 fruit bearing and 20 forest trees, made possible from the donations of School of Computing faculty, the student council, publication and student institutions including, Code Geeks (CG), League of Outstanding Programers (LOOP), Multimedia Aficionados for Interest Artist (MAFIA) and Cybersecurity Intelligence Alliance (CSIA). Completing the goal for the initiative while raising awareness on the water scarcity issue that we could be dealing with four years from now by helping preserve the watershed. 

The student leaders were able to get a positive experience out of the partnered outreach program. Luis Miguel Frigillana, an officer from MAFIA, expressed that his experience was good. He stated “since the outreach helps the CSC and the different organizations become familiar with each other, like some kind of team building“, signifying that not only was this outreach helpful for the environment but was also a small step into closing the gap between each student institution through community extension.

Initiatives like this encourage students to be proactive in bringing a good impact to our community and environment. While matters like the decline of our environment become imminent day by day, taking action now helps lessen the damage it can transpire. Beyond just preserving these natural resources for us to utilize for years to come, it also empowers indigenous communities and brings together students to mobilize for change.

By: Maria Angelica Sabay