MANILA -- Three celebrities reinforced the bid to conserve and protect nature.
On Thursday (Feb. 28), television host Rovilson Fernandez and film actress Iza Calzado renewed their respective contracts with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines to further support the organization's environmental initiatives.
Show business personality Janine Gutierrez also signed her contract with WWF Philippines to continue helping promote environmental conservation and protection.
They signed their contracts during WWF Philippines' 2019 Earth Hour (EH) launch in Pasig City.
"Earth is beautiful and we must do our share to take care of it," Fernandez said.
He and Calzado are WWF Philippines National Ambassadors.
Gutierrez, meanwhile, is a WWF Philippines National Youth Ambassador.
EH is a grassroots movement of WWF Philippines' mother organization WWF, which is being promoted worldwide annually to inspire and empower individuals, organizations and governments to take tangible action for Earth.
Earlier, WWF said the Philippines' participation in Earth Hour over the years inspired beneficial action like the deployment of portable solar lamps to replace dangerous and dirty kerosene lamps in Palawan and Mindoro provinces.
There is sharing of best community practices and dissemination of Media Library climate change solutions, WWF continued.
"What EH proves is if we come together, we can actually make a positive change for the environment," Calzado said.
WWF Philippines will spearhead on March 30 in Makati City the Philippines' main 2019 EH celebration.
The celebration is anchored on WWF Philippines' campaign against single-use plastics.
Plastic pollution is among threats to the environment, WWF Philippines noted.
Fernandez, Calzado and Gutierrez assured to exert efforts to reduce their use of plastic products.
WWF Philippines President and CEO Joel Palma thanked them for such assurance.
He said the Philippines' rank as third top plastics polluter of oceans, and havoc plastic waste continues wreaking on nature, raise urgency for collective action on the matter.
"We Filipinos must unite and create concrete steps to stop this worsening situation," he said at the event.
Commencing in 2007 as a symbolic event in Sydney, WWF said EH emerged to become the world's largest grassroots environmental movement.
Over 7,000 cities in 180 countries and territories already participated in EH over the years, WWF added. (PNA)
