Philippines turns off lights for 2011 Earth Hour

The Philippines joined 134 countries in this years commemoration of the Earth Hour, the worlds largest voluntary action for the environment.

Various landmark buildings, hotels, malls, and ordinary homes all over the country switched off their lights for an hour starting at exactly 8:30 p.m. on March 26

In the past two years, the Philippines had the most number of participants among the over 15 million who joined the Earth Hour campaign. This year, organizers are hoping to achieve the same.

At the Ayala Triangle Gardens in Makati City, there was a ceremonial lighting of candles after a 10-second countdown.

Solar panels were used to keep some of the equipment running during performances, which included firedancers who moved in fiery precision to island drum beats.

During the Earth Hour in 2009, we saved 33,800 watts of electricity, while last year, the rate was 43,000 watts. The involvement of more locators in the Central Business District and the local government means that we are bound to save nore energy this year. Hopefully, we will be able to achieve at least 10% more than 2010, said Kathleen Almonte of the Department of Environmental Services of Makati.

Earth hour gives us the opportunity to underscore the relevance of each individual in saving the environment. Currently, ALI operates a total of 160 properties, and we had 100% participation from them in last years Earth Hour. This year, we wish to push it further in order to involve our tenants, visitors, and locators to actively participate in this campaign, said Erickberth Calupe, Sustainability officer of Ayala Property Management Corporation.

At the Makati Shangri-La Hotel Manila, a 60-piece Rondalla Troupe of the MSE joined the hotels executi! ves, emp loyees and their families when turned off the lights and lighted their candles.

This symbolizes the hotels commitment to go beyond the hour and operate in a sustainable and responsible way, it said in a statement.

In Manila City, even the sari-sari store owners joined the hour-long event

They told ABS-CBN News that this is their contribution to help stop climate change that has caused freak weather patterns lately. They cited the devastating floods brought by supertyphoon Ondoy in 2009 as a personal experience of why caring for the environment matters.

Lights were also turned off at one of the worlds biggest malls.

In Mall of Asia in Paraaque City, a crowd gathered in a ceremonial countdown as the mall turned off most lights, as did nearby buildings. Singers and other performers entertained the crowd during the whole duration.

In Cagayan de Oro City, the local government, other state agencies, and a mall joined forces to send the message.

Before the hour-long event ended, participants lit and released almost 800 sky lanterns, while 3 runners brought torches in the middle of a big oval at the city center. Participants joined a countdown then turned on the lights.

The annual Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia where both households and businesses went lights-off to take a stand against climate change by lessening carbon dioxide emissions through reducing energy consumption. From then on, the event was yearly practiced by people all over the world, including the Philippines.

The event kicked off in the Pacific, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, rolling into Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas as it followed the descending sun.

Andy Ridley, co-founder and executive director of Earth Hour, which is organised by global environment group the WWF, said this year would also focus on connecting people online so they could inspire each other to make commitments to help protect the environment.

Nearly 600,000 people had liked Earth Hours ! official Facebook page by the time the event began in the Asia Pacific, while hundreds of tweets with the #earthhour hashtag were appearing on Twitter every few minutes. with reports from Gretchen Malalad of ABS-CBN News, ABS-CBN Cagayan de Oro, AFP; Photos from Makati Shangri-La Hotel