By Emma M. Arellano

Morong, Bataan (1 Dec.) -- The spirit of volunteerism is very much alive in the quiet and peaceful town of Morong, Bataan, especially in the protection and conservation of the "pawikan", an endangered marine specie.

Three years ago, the community-based Pawikan Conservation Project was launched in Morong and piloted on a 10-kilometer beach in Barangay Nagbalayong.

In her speech at the recent pawikan festival held in Nagbalayong, Rosalie V. Ona, provincial science and technology officer of Bataan and president of UNLAD-PRRM, said that the project is called community-based because it is owned by the community and local residents are very much involved in all activities aimed at pawikan conservation.

Without the support and active participation of the people and of the local government, the project would not succeed and last long, Ona pointed out.

Wendell Acena, an environmentalist from the town of Samal and a former member of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), was the first to present the idea of a pawikan conservation project in Morong to UNLAD PRRM in 2000.

Acena is now connected with the Bataan provincial development office and is project officer of the pawikan center.

Acena explained that while the whole coastline of Morong is the nesting area of pawikan, the center was established in Nagbalayong because it is where the heaviest concentration of the pawikan is located.

The center, he also said, has satellite stations in two other barangays in Morong-Sabang and Poblacion.

Bantay Pawikan Inc., a non-government organization with Sangguniang Bayan member Manolo Ibias as its chairman, is project partner.

Bantay Pawikan Inc. designated the public land being used by the center which was subsequently approved by the local government of Morong.

At present, Ona said, there are also pawikan conservation projects in Tawi-Tawi, Romblon and Palawan, although these are project-based and not community-based like the one in Morong.