Tanduay president Lucio “Bong” Tan, Jr. has
been actively supporting grassroots sports through an initiative known as
Tanduay Athletics. Tan is the backer of Batangas Tanduay Athletics that is now
the team lording over the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) founded
by Sen. Manuel Pacquioa. The league
replaced a former regional basketball league that supports grassroots basketball.
Beyond sports, Tan is also passionate about
green initiatives. He himself was on top of the transformation to a zero-waste
facility of Absolut Distillers, Tanduay’s alcohol distillery based in Lian,
Batangas. The facility bagged numerous environmental awards, including the
prestigious Green Apple Awards, an annual international campaign to recognize,
reward and promote environmental best practices around the world. Absolut
Distillers is the only local distillery to have received this award up to this
day. The company likewise has since been a recipient of awards by the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for their outstanding
environment conservation practices.
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| Lucio ‘Bong’ Tan Jr. and Gerry Tee |
“We understand
the need to lessen our impact by making our operations cleaner and greener. We
do not just want to make the best rhum in the Philippines, bet we want everyone
to know that our rhum is made with good intentions and we hope to improve our
operations year after year,” Tan continued, adding that, they have started
investing in solar energy as a cleaner alternative as well. “We want our
consumers to know that every bottle of Tanduay that they drink is made from
green intentions and green energy.”
The Tanduay president further shared that
the concern for the environment sprang from the knowledge that the distillery
industry is considered as one of the dirtiest. “Before we took over Tanduay,
there have been cases filed against its practices pertaining to pollution. We
said, let us clean up first. We started investing in technologies that we are
using in our Absolut distillery in Batangas in order to reduce our carbon
footprint. It was a long process, and we did it.”
Now, Tan would like to bring public
attention to a project he started in 2011 to protect what little is left of the
old Boracay. The island has been noted as one of the world’s top destinations,
but it has encountered controversy lately due to the amount of pollution that
has been plaguing the once-pristine paradise. There are talks of a government
shutdown to tourists in order to rehabilitate the natural landscape. Tan pioneered the project “Roots for Boracay”
to save the last mangroves in the island. “When we first got there, we already
saw the amount of solid waste that lay among the mangroves. Before we started
reforesting the area, we needed to have it cleaned up,” Tan revealed.
He noted that if the mangroves have not
been cut down indiscriminately, the problems being faced by Boracay today would
have been much lesser. There would be no need to set up expensive artificial waste
treatment facilities for the island’s recovery, as the mangrove roots will
naturally filter water waste. According to him, Boracay is far from any of his
business interests, but the need to respond to an impending crisis was what
drove him to act.
“It took awhile to bring together the
various people who will help us in our quest to get hold of the right to
implement our project to clean up and re-plant in order to stop the continuous
degradation of the mangroves in that area of Boracay,” Tan further related.
But Tan had the right man on his side to
make sure his visions will be realized. Gerry Tee is the chief operating
officer of Absolut Distillers. He is the same person with whom his father Lucio
Tan Sr. entrusted the green transformation of the Batangas alcohol distillery.
With the help of Tee, they engaged the Tan Yan Kee Foundation led by Philip
Sing to gather a 200-strong workforce that began the clean up efforts in
Barangay Manoc Manoc, where the mangroves are located. They have gathered four
truckloads of garbage by the time they finish cleaning the mangroves area.
“To protect Boracay, it is important to go
down to its roots. In this case, we seek the last frontier of Boracay – the
mangroves. It is where the fish and other sea creatures get nutrients, it is where
life starts. Without the mangroves, the island would also cease to exist, as it
protects the island from typhoons. The beautiful fine white sand will go back
to the sea because their roots are the ones holding the island together,” Tee
explained.
He added that aside from building the
infrastructures and replanting mangroves, the mission of the project is to
showcase that part of Boracay that is often neglected, so people can know what
it takes to protect the beaches that tourists love so much.
The project had partnered with the local
government unit, the DENR and concerned non-government organizations to come up
with a sustainable development in the area which involves the locals, educating
them about the importance of the mangroves to their island. “So much has been
cut down to make way for real estate, others cut them down for firewood. A
portion is also dying out, because a road development cut off water supply. With
Roots For Boracay, people have
begun to understand what needs to be done,” said Tee.
The Tanduay executives underscored that it
is not about the company, which has also instituted other environmental
campaigns in partnership with the Tan Yang Kee Foundation such as The Canopy
Project, which replants trees in the denuded forests in the North. “Boracay is
only part of the market for Tanduay, we are more concerned about our legacy. It
is not about Tanduay, it is about the locals – their subsistence, their
livelihood, and their existence. Tanduay is just there as a vehicle to raise
awareness,” Tee said.
They cautioned that if the lack of concern
for the environment continues in the name of profit, Boracay will not be the
only one. “If Boracay is closed down, people will move on to Palawan. This has
happened before, just look at how Matabungkay deteriorated,” Tee admonished.
“The issue is lack of awareness, and we are trying to address that with our
project.”
They said that the plans of shutting down
Boracay will hurt a lot, but from their perspective of what they have seen in
the mangrove forest, it could be a one-step-backward, two-steps-forward
situation. “It is about moving forward, and we can all help in our own little
way, by doing things like picking up a cigarette butt and not throwing your
garbage just anywhere,” Tee said.
“It was a directive from the Chairman, Mr.
Lucio Tan to follow the concept of sustainable development, where we do not
profit at the expense of the environment. We make sure that everything we do is
about reducing our carbon footprint and become more independent from the
environment where we do not use to dump our waste,“ Tee further shared.
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