Actress turns environmentalist

Beautiful Filipina actress, Chin Chin Gutierrez, 29, has a new hat, as the entertainment world's environmentalist.

Many believe her popularity could give a stronger push to environmental issues that are currently aired by contentious and hard-hitting activists.

In an issue of Time magazine dated April 28, Gutierrez was included among Asia's heroes such as Japan's Yoko Ono, who fought the U.S.-led war in Vietnam in the 1970s; China's Yao Ming, now centre of the Houston Rockets, a U.S. basketball team; and Japan's Satoshi Fukoyama, blind at nine, deaf at 10, but now an author and a fighter for the rights of the handicapped.

Last year, Gutierrez organised and launched her Mother Earth Foundation. She has organised workshops on litter management.

Most Filipinos do not know how to manage their mess, she said, adding that many of them are spoiled because garbage trucks pick up garbage daily in Metro Manila.

A crisis ensued when Manila's 10-ton garbage a day could no longer be thrown away by the Metro Manila Development Authority into old garbage dumps.

"There should be a sense of recycling among city residents," she said, adding that recycling should become everyone's responsibility, not just that of the garbage boys who go from door to door to buy used glass and plastic bottles, newspapers, and plastic bags, among other things.

Local residents in the provinces are also encouraged to be vigilant about environment protection, she said, adding that nature "does not naturally heal by itself, it has to be nurtured by men, women, and children". "Filipinos should save their country"s natural resources," she noted.

Of late, she has been repeating a new saying: "The earth is not given to you by your parents. It is loaned to you by your grandchildren."