Naga City Earth Hour 2019: Time to switch off

NAGA CITY --- Darkness will envelop once again the entire city for more than an hour in the evening of March 30, this year. The annual event called Earth Hour is part of a global celebration by more than a hundred million people.

The event highlights a worldwide movement wherein individuals, communities, governments and other environment advocacy groups in the planet will voluntarily turn off non-essential lights and shut down electrical devices from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. as a gesture of man’s love for Mother Earth.

The Earth Hour movement raises the awareness of people about climate change and hopes

to bring the human race together to think about what they can do to reduce harmful carbon pollution that causes rising global temperatures.

“The global undertaking, however, does not purport to be a carbon reduction exercise. It is a symbolic action. Therefore, we do not engage in the measurement of carbon reduction levels as it is an initiative to encourage everyone around the world to take accountability for their ecological footprint and engage in dialogue and resource exchange that provides real solution to our environmental challenges,” says Mayor John G. Bongat.

In this city, Earth Hour, which started as a simple lights-off event in Sydney, Australia in 2007, will be celebrated at Robinsons Place Naga for one day from 10 o’clock in the morning to 9:30 in the evening with the hanging of tarpaulins and Earth Hour sale by mall’s affiliated stores and tenants. At 3:00 p.m. a registration for on-the-spot poster-making contest will be conducted. The contest will officially begin at 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon and the awarding of winners will be held at 9 o’clock in the evening.

A Zumba party will reel off from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. which will be followed immediately by a 28-minute program with Vice Mayor Nelson S. Legacion and City Councilor Salvador del Castillo, chairman of Sangguniang Panlungsod’s Committee on Environment, for their messages of support and opening remarks, respectively.

Before the lights-off at exactly 8:29:50 p.m. three video presentations will be shown: Robinson Mall’s environmental campaign, the global Earth Hour 2019, and the City ENRO’s environmental programs and initiatives.

After the 60-minute-plus lights-off, a night parade and cavalcade of e-bikers, e-trikes and night bikers will take the center-stage. They will pass through the main roads of Central Business Districts I and II and then return back to Robinsons Place Naga alfresco area where another program will take off with Mayor Bongat, his wife, Farah, and Congressman Gabby Bordado of Camarines Sur’s 3rd district as guests, along with Ms. Kristina Francia Daquioag, Robinsons Place Naga operations manager, and members of the performing live bands.