24th to 26th April:
Heading south, our team of five left Baguio and flew to Cebu City and eventually made our way via ferry to the gorgeous Island of Bohol. From there it was a 30-minute taxi to our accommodation on the tourist Island of Panglao. The Citadel Alona Inn is owned by Omi Chaluyan and her husband Jimmy, who also own and run Dos Locos, a fantastic Mexican restaurant. Omi is a member of the Junior Chamber International (JCI), a network of groups of motivated young business people. JCI members were coming together for a climate action workshop with The Ball. Their network in Bohol not only participated in a SOF workshop but they also organised a visit to a local youth football club and took care of accommodation and logistics for the SOF team.
Boholana Kisses President Deb Jomarleh, Omi and 14 other JCI members joined our 4-hour workshop on the evening of the 25th of April. Participants talked about how climate change is affecting their daily lives and businesses: indeed, in the few days we were there we were able to witness first-hand the most recent heat wave with temperatures of up to 40 degrees. All of the participants had their own climate change stories. The region is one of the most climate affected locations in the world: facing heat waves, sea level rise, water and food security issues, and saltwater intrusion into water wells and is also subjected to regular typhoons: Most recently Typhoon Odette hit shortly before Christmas in 2021 leading to the entire Island went without power for three entire months. Other human caused problems are coral reef degradation and deforestation. At the end of the workshop these engaged young business leaders made their own climate pledges. Omi however didn’t make an immediate pledge. She drove us back to the wonderful Citadel Alona and quietly pondered what she could pledge to do.
Having had a night to sleep on it, Omi made her pledge before we departed for our next workshop: Her hostel would go green:
I pledge to turn our place (Citadel Alona) into an eco-hostel. We are going to start with adding more trash bins so that people can segregate their trash. We are going to plant all our own vegetables, especially peppers and anything that grows here for use in our restaurant (Dos Locos) and work towards solar energy.
Later several JCI members joined our FairPlay football workshop at Gaher FC, supported by the local government, with children aged between 7 and 13 on the remote Island Municipality of Garcia-Hernandez. The children, who we noticed had surprisingly good football skills, were randomly mixed into teams composed of boys and girls, younger and older players, for a FairPlay football in the intense heat(wave) of the day. Thankfully the JCI team was on hand to provide iced water and snacks. Despite the football being fun and fair, there was a stampede to sign The Ball at the end of the workshop: FairPlay had suddenly been tossed out of the window. Sophia and Valeree needed to break it up, take the Molotov signature pens back and demand that The Ball signing session take place in an orderly and FAIR fashion. Sometimes the great passion that The Ball evokes can be dangerous.
It was then that we met Baltz Tribunalo Jr., a climate expert who had witnessed our session and been enthralled by it. He came up to Andrew and asked: How is football related to climate change? Andrew answered:
Football is the world’s most popular game; climate change is the biggest problem facing humanity. Football has the potential to move the masses to take action on climate.
Baltz was convinced and proposed setting up a longer term local project.