House Bill 8728 or The Graduation Legacy for the Environment Act

What is happening now? Lot has changed. Rainforests were burned, many trees were cut,

and our climate is getting hotter than before. Is this the cause of nature or ourselves? Earth is the

only planet where humans can live on for it able to support life. It is the home to million species

of plants and animals. And trees are one of the contributor that give life on this planet for it produce

oxygen and provides food.

The Philippines climate is getting hotter and hotter and millions of trees are illegally cut.

Jacinta Bowler (2019). Between 1990 and 2005 the country lost 32.3 percent of its forest cover.

And it makes a big issue for the country, but now the Philippines House of Representative has put

forward a new way of dealing with the problem. The PHR proposed a house bill called “Graduation

Legacy for the Environment Act or House Bill 8728” it was proposed by two representatives, Gary

Alejano and Strike Revilla. This bill aims to require all graduating elementary, high school, and

college students to plant at least 10 trees each before they can graduate. It is the policy of the State

to pursue programs and projects that promote environmental protection, biodiversity, climate

change mitigation, poverty reduction, and food security.

Alejano said "This initiative, if properly implemented, will ensure that at least 175 million

new trees would be planted each year. In the course of one generation, no less than 525 billion can

be planted under this initiative". Trees must be planted in forest lands, mangrove and protected

areas, ancestral domains, civil and military reservations, urban areas under the greening plan of

the local government units, inactive and abandoned mine sites, and other suitable lands. CNN

Philippines (2019).
 Under this bill, many agencies are mandated to help this proposed law, among them are

the Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education, Department of Environmental

and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Agriculture, Department of Agrarian Reform, and

the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples and other government agencies. The agencies

shall be responsible for nursery establishment, seedling production and site preparation,

monitoring and evaluation, and technical support and extension services. And they must also

provide security, transportation, fire protection amenities, and medical support. Congress.gov.ph.

In our country the number of trees is decreasing and we are experiencing lot of natural

disaster like typhoon, flooding, and air pollution. If the house bill 8728 be approve it will be greatly

helpful to us for trees have many beneficial factors. Trees offers us fresh air, food, medicine, and

shade when the climate is hot. It helps to prevent storm water and flooding issues. It encourages

biodiversity for many birds, animals, and insects call trees home. It can help the wildlife bring

back for we are losing species at an alarming rate. Aside of it provide shelter it also protects our

land and give more beauty to our nature.

Kids can have a natural playground for it provides a great place to climb and explore

without their parent worrying because the sun is high. It also helps them to be more active because

in our generation we are in a world where technology consume people’s attention.

Every one of us living in this country has the responsibility to take care the nature. It is not

only the government has responsible to take care of it. We are living here for years and we do

nothing. We keep complaining that the weather is hot and we are experiencing climate change, but

complaining is not the solution. As a citizen of this country we must do something to save our

mother earth and not only rely to our leaders for we can benefit here and our future generation.
Like Pope Francis said “We are stewards, not masters of our earth. Each of us has a personal

responsibility to care for the precious gift of God’s creation”.

We cannot restore nature if we are doing nothing and just waiting others to take action for

it, like Albert Einstein said “We cannot solve our problem with same thinking we used when we

created them.” So we must change our perspective, change begins with ourselves.

Prince Ea said “All of this happening right now the crisis is not global warming, natural

disaster, or animal agriculture, it is us, these problems are symptoms of us”. We are the reasons of

this happening so we are also the one to take the consequences of it. And we are the one who has

the responsibilities to take care of it.

This proposed bill will be our stepping stone to change ourselves and see the importance

of trees and our nature. Because in this generation we don’t care of what will be going to happened

tomorrow we can only see the importance of things if it’s already gone. The bill imposes us to start

for change before its too late. We are not apart from nature, we are part of nature. To save our

nature is to save us. Nature doesn’t need us but we humans need nature.
References:

House passes bill requiring graduation students to plant 10 trees on final reading. (2019)
Retrieved from https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/5/15/House-bill-plant-10-trees-graduation-
requirement.html?fbclid=IwAR2Qv57xsSFElmx1JlBU0E5Q_j0yrErhU1YkDBDTnhf13LvnCK
h4OmANE24
Bowler Jacinta. Philippines Passes Bill Requiring Students to Plant 10 Trees Before
Graduating. (2019).
Retrieved from https://www.sciencealert.com/philippines-passes-bill-requiring-graduating-
students-to-plant-10-trees-before-
graduating?fbclid=IwAR09W3GuVjuv9uhZxekDJ4_nDQGWZH3ZW7d4Trz3UAwIYcBZGnty
W0DecAY
House green-lights bill requiring all graduating students to plant 10 trees each. (2019)
Retrieved from
http://congress.gov.ph/press/details.php?key=students&pressid=11475&fbclid=IwAR02PUrB_1
3pNsyg8t0OH710FX_Tn85HnTErzOVl-Lt8BBCyk6mI-3fXCSo
Retrieved from https://trees.org/post/10-ways-trees-
help/?fbclid=IwAR09W3GuVjuv9uhZxekDJ4_nDQGWZH3ZW7d4Trz3UAwIYcBZGntyW0D
ecAY